Hummingbird Cake

The Hummingbird Cake

This hummingbird cakes is very delicious. This is the most suitable for tea time with our family.I like this cake because there are many almond inside the cake.I love making cake instead buy it from a shop. The name of this cake is sound interesting right? So you guys definitely wanna try this cake's recipe.

The History Of The Hummingbird Cake

Despite its cryptic name, the Hummingbird cake’s origins are clearer than most. Usually the origins of foods are shrouded in the mists of time, handed down from generation to generation before popping up somewhere completely different.

The giveaway to the Hummingbird cake’s birthplace, however, is in the key ingredients – bananas and pineapple. Hopefully you’re already thinking of the Caribbean, and it’s thought to have been invented in Jamaica, probably in the late ‘60s.

Originally, it was called the “Doctor bird cake”, a nickname for a Jamaican variety of hummingbird called the Red-billed Streamertail. The name came from the way the bird’s long beak probes flowers, like a doctor inspecting a patient. So what does that have to do with a pineapple and banana cake? Some say the cake was named after the bird because it was sweet enough to attract hummingbirds (who eat only nectar), while others say the yellow streaks of banana was reminiscent of the bird’s plumage. Either way, the Doctor bird was about to take flight.

In 1968, the Jamaican tourist board decided to try attracting tourists by sending out press kits to the US. In the packs were a few recipes from the island, including one for the Doctor bird cake. Over the next few years, similar recipes started to crop up in local papers and community cookbooks across the South under various different names, including the prophetic “Cake that doesn’t last”.

Most food historians agree the first printed recipe for Hummingbird cake was by one Mrs L H Wiggin. She supplied the recipe to Southern Living magazine in February 1978, but even before then there are countless references to the cake in county fair reports and baking competitions across southern America.

The cake is more popular that it has ever been, particularly in the US. Always keen to put his own stamp on recipes, Jamie has taken a traditional deep-south Hummingbird recipe and given it some new twists, such as lime in the cream cheese frosting. The most notable addition, however, is a stunning pecan brittle topping, achieved by melting sugar and mixing it with broken pecan nuts, before smashing it into crumbs. The result is an incredible crunch on top of the cake that makes this deep-flavoured, moist treat even more special.

As Jamie says: “This is the humming bird cake. Something a bit unusual, beautiful to make with incredible flavour. It’s a cake that cannot fail to put a smile on your face.”

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour 

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups sugar 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 large eggs, beaten 

1 cup vegetable oil 

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained 

1 cup chopped pecans

2 cups chopped bananas 

cream cheese frosting

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Preparation

Combine first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; add eggs and oil, stirring until dry ingredients are moistened. (Do not beat.) Stir in vanilla, pineapple, 1 cup pecans, and bananas.

Pour batter into three greased and floured 9-inch round cakepans. Bake at 350° for 25 to 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; remove from pans, and cool completely on wire racks.

Spread Cream Cheese Frosting between layers and on top and sides of cake; sprinkle 1/2 cup chopped pecans on top. Store in refrigerator.