Unique baked goods keep my world turning. Baking for others has become more than just a standard procedure - I'm not making a vanilla cake these days. I've done everything from Bananas Foster Cupcakes to Apple Hand Pies just by making note of the preferences of my colleagues and friends. This time around, I was baking for a southerner, raised in Alabama. I didn't really know where to start; I'd made the Yum Yum Pie recipe on his suggestion, but most of the southern desserts I know are pies and the like and I wanted something new.
I did a bit of research on famous Alabama recipes; though I'm from Tennessee originally, I'm no expert on southern dishes, and Google knows all. Besides, our focus was BBQ and not cake when I was a kid. I skimmed through strawberry pies, ice cream dishes, and unique restaurant foods, then a very cutely named one stuck out: Hummingbird Cake.
A quick glance at the recipe revealed that it was a cake loaded with banana and pineapple. Say no more! Considering that the person I was making this for is always raving about fruit flavors, the choice was basically made for me.
This is one of those throw-everything-together recipes, with a bunch of ingredients going into the my mixing bowl for some stirrage. I added flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg into my stand mixing bowl, using spelt flour for 1/3 of the flour. Spelt has a nutty flavor to it and I find it adds a density to cakes. I then added melted butter and eggs, gently stirring it until combined. The final items to go in were crushed pineapple and of course, banana, before scooping half the batter into a mini bundt pan. Though the original recipe I saw had this as a layered cake, I split the batter into two parts, leaving the pecans out of the first half (one colleague can't eat tree nuts and I wasn't going to be that guy and leave her out!).
I put the pecan version into a cupcake pan. I went a little lazy here and used store-bought glazed pecans but I think the choice was a worthy one. Those pecans were GOOD.
I let them bake, then set them aside to cool before getting started on some icing. I do want to note that chunky nuts in cakes are just not my favorite thing, so I ground these up fairly fine.
The frosting was a basic cream cheese icing, composed of butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla bean paste. I prefer the vanilla paste to the extract mostly because in an item like frosting, seeing the actual vanilla beans is gratifying. Mmm, vanilla.
I skipped on any fancy decorating and just used a knife to smear on the frosting. Since I had two versions and I wanted to add some cuteness to the non-pecan version, I took some cake crumbs that I slicked off the bottom of the bundts (they rose up and were not flat enough to sit pretty) and crumbled them over the top. Who knew that would look cute?
The pecan versions received crushed up pecans sprinkled on top and a glazed pecan in the center. Cute!
Holy moly. I don't know what I expected from this, but this rich, flavorful cake turned out to be everything I needed and more. The density was somewhat like banana bread, but slightly lighter. The small pineapple chunks were detectable throughout, but small enough to just add a slight texture. It was hard to decide if I preferred the pecan-less version over the regular, but there was something special added with that pecan flavor. An allergy is the only reason I can justify skipping pecans, as even this gal who isn't a hug fan of chunks of nut in cake (I believe cakes are intended to be soft and fluffy and the harshness of chopped nuts is a rate thing for me to enjoy) found that the finer chopped nuts took this over the edge.
Now I want to watch Fried Green Tomatoes.
Hummingbird Cake Recipe
For the cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup spelt flour (or use only all purpose flour)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 can crushed pineapple in juice, (8 ounces)
3 ripe bananas, chopped into pieces 1/4 inch in size
1/2 cup toasted chopped pecans
For the frosting:
1 1/2 packages cream cheese (12 ounces total), soften
3/4 cup butter, softened
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Add flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg together into a large bowl and whisk together. Add melted butter and eggs, then stir until just combined. Stir in pineapple, banana, and chopped pecans. Scoop into cupcake pans and bake for 18-20 minutes, until a toothpick poked in the center comes out clean.
For the frosting, add cream cheese and butter to a large mixing bowl and beat on high speed 2 minutes, until smooth and creamy. Gradually add in powdered sugar, mixing in coconut milk part way through adding the sugar until the frosting is thick and creamy. Add more sugar if the frosting is too thin. Mix in vanilla, then frost cooled cupcakes.
adapted from hummingbird cake
No comments:
Post a Comment