Hummingbird Cake Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is a hummingbird cake made of? ›

If you're not familiar, hummingbird cake is a spiced pineapple-banana cake topped with cream cheese frosting and pecans. Maybe it's the pecans that lure me in or the way the taste fools me into thinking I might just be eating a fancy piece of banana bread with a little cream cheese. Good for you, right?

The name is thought to come from the fact that the cake is sweet enough to attract hummingbirds seeking nectar. This dessert recipe comes from the Carribean country of Jamaica, originating in the 1960's. It's a banana cake similar to my traditional version, but with the addition of sweet pineapple and pecans.

If you are a fan of banana bread, you'll adore this cake! It's packed full of flavor and texture with pecans, coconut, and pineapple!

You want to take care not to accidentally over-mix the batter or the cake could end up dense and dry, or even rubbery (like over-mixed banana pancakes).

An Elvis Presley cake is a single-layer classic yellow cake that's topped with a pineapple glaze. Much like a poke cake, the syrup and juices of the pineapple will seep into the cake through fork holes, resulting in a decadent, ultra-moist cake.

The frog cake is a small dessert shaped to resemble a frog with its mouth open, consisting of a sponge base with a jam centre, topped in artificial cream and covered with a thick layer of fondant icing. The recipe today remains identical to the one employed when the cake was first produced in the 1920s.

Another story tells of a dim sum chef's wife creating a pastry with wintermelon paste influenced by a recipe from her mother's family. The new pastry was found to taste better than the dim sums that were being sold in teahouses, and the chef proudly told everyone it was made by his wife, hence it was named "Wife Cake".

It had been a very long time since I had an icebox cake. In the book, Dylan calls it the Robert Redford Cake and it comes from the chapter that features recipes from the 1970s. Apparently the cake is named after Redford because its as tasty as he is sexy.

Swedish Princess Cake (Prinsesstårta) is a classic Scandinavian torte with layers of sponge cake, raspberry jam, vanilla custard, and whipped cream. It is traditionally dome-shaped and covered with a layer of sweet marzipan tinted green. Princess Cake has been on my baking bucket list for ages.

These zainy treats are made with delicious fluffy yellow cake with irresistible creme filling covered in white icing with fudgey stripes. The Little Debbie® Vending Zebra Cake is individually wrapped, labeled with calories displayed on the front of the wrap and packed in retail-ready cartons.

What is the Tom Cruise coconut cake? ›

Karen Doan first created the cake when she opened Doan's Bakery in 1984. The family-owned and -operated bakery describes the Cruise Cake as a coconut bundt cake with chunks of white chocolate, covered in a layer of cream cheese frosting and a mountain of shredded coconut.

FLAVOR AND TEXTURE

This Southern classic Hummingbird Cake tastes like a tropical cross between banana bread and pineapple-upside down cake with a texture reminiscent of carrot cake with bursts of pineapple and pecans– sans carrots.

Baking powder is mixed with the flour. When water is added to this flour to make dough, baking powder undergoes a chemical reaction during which carbon dioxide gas is produced. This carbon dioxide gas gets trapped into the dough and bubbles out which causes the cake to rise making it soft and spongy.

The Aussies added the coconut topping, and christened it the Lumberjack Cake because it looked like it was littered with woodchips on top. Since the word “lumberjack” was first coined in Canada, it made sense that somewhere along the way, someone assumed the cake itself had its origins in Canada.

Hummingbirds get their name from the humming sound their wings make when in flight or hovering – the noise is often compared to the sound of a bee or mosquito. A hummingbird can flap its wings up to 80 times a second, or as many as 200 times in a dive.

Mix the honey and sweet feed or oats together in a large bowl. When fully mixed, place the mixture on a plate and shape into the form of a birthday cake. Use the carrots as candles and the apple slices as decorations.

Mix 1 part sugar with 4 parts water (for example, 1 cup of sugar with 4 cups of water) until the sugar is dissolved. Do not add red dye. Fill your hummingbird feeders with the sugar water and place outside. Extra sugar water can be stored in a refrigerator.

The origins of this cake are murky. Some sources say it may have first shown up in a Texas newspaper, which is why it's called "Texas" sheet cake, while others claim the name comes from the fact that it's the size of Texas. Regardless of its origins, this cake is truly a crowd-pleaser.