Hummingbird Cake
This Hummingbird Cake is a moist and flavorful cake that combines the sweetness of bananas, pineapple, and pecans with a cream cheese icing.
This Hummingbird Cake is a moist and flavorful cake that combines the sweetness of bananas, pineapple, and pecans with a cream cheese icing.
- Carbohydrate 41.611880994852 g
- Cholesterol 35.9107142857143 mg
- Fat 33.8463819284307 g
- Fiber 1.56988813643024 g
- Protein 4.37760428969329 g
- Saturated Fat 10.0710639601626 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (111g)
- Sodium 461.181976623929 mg
- Sugar 40.0419928584218 g
- Trans Fat 1.45979238746248 g
- Calories 480 calories
Step-by-step
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 12 cup Bundt pan.
- Measure flour, sugar, soda, salt, cinnamon, oil, eggs, vanilla into mixing bowl. Beat until smooth. Stir in pineapple with juice, bananas, and pecans. Pour into prepared pan.
- Bake in oven for about 70 minutes. Turn cake out onto rack or plate after cooling for 20 minutes. Cool, and ice with cream cheese icing.
Unlike a standard butter-based pound cake that relies on creamed dairy for structure, this Southern classic utilizes vegetable oil to maintain moisture over several days. Economy drives much of this formulation. Liquid oil costs less per volume than butter and eliminates the creaming step, preventing over-aeration that can cause fruit-heavy batters to collapse. Bakers substituting applesauce for a portion of the 1 1/4 cups of vegetable oil will reduce fat content, but the resulting crumb becomes significantly denser due to lower lipid interference with gluten development. Fresh bananas provide starch and natural sweetness, yet overripe specimens with heavily spotted peels yield a stronger fruit flavor profile while introducing excess moisture that requires precise baking times. Crushed pineapple contributes acidity to react with the 1 teaspoon of baking soda, supplying the primary chemical lift without requiring additional buttermilk. Walnuts serve as a viable 1:1 replacement for the 1 cup of chopped pecans if market prices dictate a swap, though walnuts impart a slightly more astringent tannin note to the finished crumb. Thoroughly greasing and flouring a 12-cup Bundt pan prevents sugar-rich batters from adhering to complex metal crevices during inversion. Allowing the baked dessert to rest undisturbed for precisely 20 minutes in the pan permits internal steam to redistribute and structural starches to set before turning the mass out onto a wire rack. Baking requires an oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, continuing until a wooden skewer inserted into the thickest section emerges clean, which generally takes approximately 70 minutes. Dense fruit cakes of this style benefit from complete ambient cooling before applying cream cheese frosting to prevent the dairy fats from melting into a translucent glaze.
