Hummingbird Cake-Banana,Pineapple & Pecan

I have been wanting to make this cake for such a long time but just never did! Until yesterday!

Banana, pineapple & pecans in this cake give it such a wonderful flavor… moist from the banana and pineapple..and then the crunch of pecans! Cream cheese frosting.. it was so hard not to eat all the frosting before I got it on the cake… is just the finish this needs!

The cake is baked in 3 layers…one of which broke but I just pieced it together and it was not easy to tell except that the cake dipped on the side that was broken a bit… and my icing was really soft so it was very messy putting this together… and it did not look very nice so I decided to just coat the most of the sides and top of the iced cake with chopped pecans! it ended up looking beautiful!

The cake can be mixed by hand if you want or you can use a mixer! I did it by hand and it was fine. The icing has to be made in a mixer

This is very big cake so I gave most of it away..not that we didn’t want to eat it all..but I enjoyed sharing it!!

The cake was very moist but it was cooked through completely. Being the first time I have made this cake I will be interested to see how moist it is the next time I make it! No one seems to mind!

The recipe I used was from Southern Living.. here is the link to that recipe

Here is the recipe

Ingredients

Cake

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups oil

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 can crushed pineapple…do not drain this

3 ripe bananas, chopped

1 cup chopped toasted pecans

Icing

1 cup softened butter

4 cups icing sugar, sifted

2 tsp vanilla

2 8 oz pkg icing sugar

2 cups chopped roasted pecans for the outside of your cake

Method

preheat oven to 350f

Grease & flour 3. 9-inch cake pans.. grease and flour really well .one of my cakes stuck!

Roast 3 cups of pecans.. put the pecans on a lined baking sheet in a 350f oven.. for about 5 minutes…until they become fragrant. you can roast them already chopped or chop them once they are cooled. You will need 1 cup of pecans for the cake batter & about 2 cups for the outside of the cake.

1. In a large bowl whisk the eggs, oil & vanilla together.( or beat in a mixer )
2. Mix in the dry ingredients & combine well
3. Add the pineapple with the juice, the chopped banana and the pecans. Mix well
4. Divide the batter evenly between the 3 prepared cake pans. it is about 3 cups of batter in each pan
5. Bake in the preheated oven until baked all the way through…approx 30 minutes. Check with a cake tester or toothpick to s that it comes out dry.
6. Let the cakes cook in the pans for 5-10 minutes.; cut around the edges between the cake and the pan to help release the cake. Turn the cakes over onto cooling racks and let cool completely before icing
7. Make the icing…make sure the butter and cream cheese are at room temperature. Using a mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese until very smooth scrape down the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl so that all of the butter and cream cheese will be combined. Add the vanilla & mix in. Now add the sifted icing sugar, start the mixer off really slowly or the icing sugar will fly out of the bowl making a huge mess!!! Mix until you have a nice smooth icing. (If you icing is too soft ( mine was) pop it into the fridge for about 5-10 minutes ( which I did not do) you do not want the icing to be hard but abit cooler after mixing might be good!)

When the cake layers are cool put your cake together. Start by putting on of the cakes onto a serving plate. Top with 1 cup of the icing & spread it evenly over the layer. Put the second cake layer on and spread with one cup of icing then top with the last layer cake. Ice the sides and top of the cake. Decorate the cake with the chopped pecans .. I pressed them into the sides of the cake and on top

I put the cake in the fridge to firm up before cutting…and I stored it in the fridge.

This cake was really impressive and delicious!

Enjoy!