July 4th is a special day for all Americans and it is for us too.. We celebrate the birth of our little prince who turns 2 on this day.
I have been thinking of which new cake to bake on this special day. Checked out a lot of cakes but was not able to decide which one and wanted to try something new which I have never heard of before. Being an amateur in baking I was quite apprehensive about choosing the cake recipe. Finally I decided on the Hummingbird Cake. Found it very interesting because of its ingredients and because it was quite hassle free compared to the rest. J
Just loved the flavors. It was amazing! Crunchy, at the same time could get the taste of pineapple and it just melts in your mouth. I don’t like the taste of banana cake but in this cake the taste of banana was not so evident so I loved it. It is truly a fruit and nut studded super moist cake.
The best part about this cake is that there is no beating, forming peaks, sifting and stuff. It is quite easy. This was my first trial with layered cakes and quite happy with the result.
INGREDIENTS
Recipe Source: Godairyfree.org
All Purpose Flour – 3 cups
Sugar – 2 cups
Baking Soda - 1 teaspoon
Ground Cinnamon – 1 teaspoon
Salt – 1 teaspoon
Eggs – 3 large beaten
Vegetable Oil - 1 ½ cup
Crushed Pineapple – 227 gm (8 ounce)
Bananas – 2 Chopped
Almonds/Pecans – 1 cup chopped
Vanilla Extract – 1 ½ teaspoon
Cream Cheese Frosting:
Recipe Source: Joy of baking
Unsalted Butter – ¼ cup at room temperature
Cream Cheese – 227 gm at room temperature
Confectioners/Icing Sugar – 454 gm sifted
Vanilla Essence – 1 teaspoon
½ cup – Chopped Almonds/ Pecans
METHOD
Preheat oven 180 degree C.
Combine all the dry ingredients. Stir well with a ladle.
Beat the eggs slightly and add to the powder mixture.
Add the oil and mix again. Do not beat just mix well so as to combine all the ingredients.
Stir in the pineapple with the juice, banana, 1 cup of the nuts and vanilla.
Grease 3 (9-inch) round cake pans with butter. Line the bottoms of the cake pans with parchment paper. Grease each pan with 1 tbsp. butter and dust with a little flour; shake pans so that flour evenly coats them. Invert pans and tap out excess flour.
Divide the batter among the prepared pans.
Bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until a until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean.
Let the cake cool for 10 – 15 minutes. Invert pans and remove parchment paper and let cool on rack.
Frosting
The actual recipe for the frosting is given above. As I did not manage to get Cream Cheese I had to go for the butter icing. Just beat the butter (approx 400 gm) to make it soft and then keep adding the icing sugar as per your preference. The butter icing recipe calls for 1:2 ratio of butter and icing sugar but I find that too sweet. So keep adding till you get the right texture and stop adding icing sugar when the sweetness level is as per your palate.
Assembly
Place one layer of the cake on the cake stand.
Apply the icing evenly on the top. Place the second and third layer repeating the same process.
Spread the frosting on the sides. Decorate with the chopped Almonds/ Pecans.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate.
