Hummingbird Cake

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There are three cakes that every southern kitchen has a recipe for in the recipe box.  A coconut cake, a red velvet cake, and of course a hummingbird cake.  These are none cakes you would see very often.  They were made for special occasions.  It was usually a holiday or other special family get together that you would find one of these cakes.  Of course in our house, there was one other that was seen more.  That one is a Kentucky stack cake, or Dried apple stack cake.  To this day, it is still my favorite.  The beautiful cake in this picture was baked by my mom and favorite cousin Gladys.  I think they did an awesome job.

Well today it was time to make a cake for another special occasion.  It is one of my dearest friends birthday this weekend, and she refused to pick a cake.  Only saying that whatever I made would be fine with her because she likes everything I bake.  Well I couldn’t let her go with just an ordinary cake for her birthday, so it was time to pull one of my southern specialties out of its hiding place in the back of grandmas’ recipe box.  This year Andrea is going to get a Hummingbird cake.  This cake is so dense and rich and filled with fruits that it must weigh 5 pounds or more.

Now some of you may recognize this recipe from the hummingbird cupcakes I made last year.  They were such a hit, I decided to make the real cake this time.  Instead of toasted coconut, this one got covered with crushed pecans.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• 3 eggs, well beaten
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1  8 oz. can crushed pineapple, do not drain
• 1 cup chopped pecans for batter
• 5 large bananas, chopped or mashed
• 32 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 2 sticks butter, softened to room temp.
• 1 box confectioners sugar
• 2 cups toasted coconut
• 1 cup crushed pecans for topping

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line your cupcake pan with liners.
2. Sift flour, white and brown sugars, salt, baking soda, cinnamon and allspice  together in a mixing bowl.
3. Add eggs, applesauce and vegetable oil to the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until moistened.
4. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla, pineapple and pecans, and then stir in the bananas.
5. Divide the batter equally among the three well-greased cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Be careful not to over bake as the cake should be moist.
6. Cool in pans for ten minutes and then turn out the cakes onto a cooling rack. Allow them to cool completely (or better yet, freeze them for a day or two which intensifies that flavors) before frosting them with the cream cheese frosting.
7. For the cream cheese frosting, combine the cream cheese and the butter until smooth, then add the box of powdered sugar and beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the pecans and coconut (or use to coat outside of cake after icing).  Stir in the remaining teaspoon of vanilla.
8. After icing the cake, you can use the pecans for the top and sides as I did.  (as you can see, mom and Gladys mixed the crushed pecans in with the frosting)