HUMMINGBIRD CAKE

I have made a hummingbird cake many times for our Children in Need cake stall at work and they always sold well.  The recipe I used was in one of those Australian Woman’s Weekly books but this time I was in France and the book in the UK so I hunted around for another recipe and found one by Mary Berry that I liked the look of.

The cake is of Southern US origin and contains bananas, pineapple, nuts and spices, producing a very moist cake with a slightly open crumb, almost muffin like in texture.

However, it keeps much better than a batch of muffins!  Mine was filled and iced with the traditional cream cheese icing but I also spread the bottom cake with a good layer of pineapple jam before adding the cream cheese and sandwiching the two layers together – just for extra pineapple flavour and sweetness - and it worked very well.  I decorated mine with sugar flowers, dried banana slices and some Galaxy chocolate gold coloured mini eggs.  
The recipe comes from the book Mary Berry Everyday and you can see it here.

(This post was published using Blogger, which I gave up on years ago in favour of Windows Live Writer, then Open Live Writer which now also seems to be misbehaving.
I don't like using Blogger as it often plays up but for now it will have to do.)

Ingredients
250g self raising flour
250g caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
50g chopped walnuts
2 large ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
1 432g tin pineapple chunks, drained and finely chopped
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
175 ml sunflower oil

For the icing
100g softened butter
175g full fat cream cheese
300g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3-4 tblsp pineapple jam (optional)
Sugar flowers, dried banana slices and chocolate eggs to decorate.

Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk6.  Butter and line the base of two 20cm sandwich tins.
Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon into a large bowl.  Add the sugar and chopped nuts and mix together.
In another bowl, mix together the bananas, pineapple, eggs, oil and vanilla.  Add this to the flour mixture and stir to combine, avoiding over mixing as with muffins.
Divide the mixture between the two tins, level the top and bake for 25-30 minutes until risen and golden.  Cool in the tins.
To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl, add the remaining ingredients (except for the jam if using) and beat with an electric whisk until smooth.  Put in the fridge to chill until the cakes are cool.
Put one cake upside down on a cake stand or plate, spread with jam if using and spread about half of the icing on top.  Add the other cake, the right way up and spread the second half of the icing over the top.
Decorate with your chosen decorations.
Cuts into 10-12 slices.