Hummingbird Bundt Cake – Sally’s Baking Habit

1 de marzo de 2024

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With its signature flavors of banana, pineapple, pecans, and spice, this hummingbird Bundt cake will fly your tastebuds off to someplace heat and sunny. Prime with a cinnamon-spiced cream cheese icing and extra toasted pecans for a cake that can disappear as rapidly because the chicken it’s named after. 😉

slice of hummingbird Bundt cake with icing and yellow flowers on cake stand.

There are many unbelievable recipes on the market for hummingbird cake, they usually’re all fairly related. I tailored this Bundt cake variation from Southern Residing‘s ever-popular recipe. It has all the primary parts of the basic hummingbird layer cake:

Banana
Pineapple
Toasted pecans
A little bit spice
Cream cheese icing

…however in Bundt kind. This can be a tremendous plush cake with tons of textures and flavors to like (and minimal adorning required). Right here is my hummingbird layer cake for those who ever wish to attempt it, too!

FAQ: Why Is It Referred to as Hummingbird Cake?

After I first started making this cake from scratch, I used to be interested in its title and origins. The cake taste originated in Jamaica. A model of the recipe was revealed by Southern Residing journal within the late Nineteen Seventies, which led to the cake’s recognition within the American South. Now hummingbird cake is also known as a Southern basic. And as for its title, the cake was named for Jamaica’s nationwide chicken!

Hummingbird Bundt Cake Substances:

ingredients on counter including pineapple, banana, oil, pecans, vanilla, eggs, sour cream, and sugars.

Pecans: Toast them first. It makes a world of distinction, belief me! I at all times advocate this for carrot cake, too. You’ll use some within the batter and the remainder as garnish on high.
Flour: All-purpose flour is the bottom of this cake.
Baking Soda + Baking Powder: We’re utilizing each leaveners right here, for double-duty to elevate up this naturally heavy cake.
Cinnamon + Allspice: These heat spices pair fantastically with the banana and pineapple.
Salt: A little bit salt balances the candy.
Eggs (from chickens, not hummingbirds): Eggs bind all of the elements collectively.
Vegetable Oil: A neutral-tasting oil makes this cake splendidly moist whereas letting its principal flavors shine.
Bitter Cream: Bitter cream lightens up the crumb of this cake, so it isn’t overly dense.
Granulated Sugar + Brown Sugar: A mixture of each sugars sweetens the cake.
Vanilla: Taste-enhancer extraordinaire!
Bananas: You need the super-ripe, brown and spotty ones such as you use for banana cake. You can even use thawed, beforehand frozen bananas. See Freeze & Thaw Bananas for Baking.
Pineapple + Juice: You need to use contemporary or canned pineapple on this cake. Finely chop it, and embody a bit pineapple juice within the batter, too.

Behind the Recipe Testing

After making at the very least half a dozen hummingbird Bundt muffins, my group and I are very proud of the ultimate consequence. After I began creating this recipe, I checked out plenty of different bakers’ recipes for hummingbird cake, in addition to my very own hummingbird cake recipe. For essentially the most half, the recipes that exist on-line for the layer cake are all fairly related. Listed here are the 4 notable adjustments I made for this Bundt cake variation, and why:

Much less banana: Our early makes an attempt got here out tasting form of like banana bread, with some pineapple in it. Whereas clearly I really like banana bread, the banana taste was overpowering every little thing else on this cake. Utilizing equal quantities of banana, pineapple, and pecans within the batter ends in a extra balanced taste profile, with no single taste hogging the highlight.
Chopped pineapple as a substitute of crushed: Most hummingbird cake recipes name for a can of crushed pineapple, however I choose to cut it up myself. This manner you may management how giant you need the items to be, and select whether or not you begin with contemporary pineapple, canned slices, or chunks/tidbits dimension. A pair spoonfuls of juice go within the batter, too, for much more moisture.
Diminished the sugar: Nearly all of recipes appear to name for two cups of white sugar within the batter, however my style testers and I believed this made the cake approach too candy. There’s plenty of pure sweetness coming from the pineapple and banana, so I diminished the quantity of sugar. I additionally use some brown sugar, for a bit further moisture and that heat molasses taste brown sugar gives (which pairs so nicely with the spice taste).
Added bitter cream: This was a late addition within the recipe testing course of, and my group and I might actually style the distinction! Bundt muffins are usually fairly dense, and bitter cream serves to loosen up the crumb.

I like to make use of pineapple chunks. Finely chop them on a slicing board. You need to use canned or contemporary:

mashed banana and pineapple chunks in a glass bowl.

The batter is thick and textured. Use a Bundt pan that holds 10 to 12 cups of batter, resembling this one or this one. Since Bundt cake pans fluctuate a lot in depth and form, the bake time will differ. I like to recommend start checking it at 50 minutes. It should probably want extra time, so proceed checking each 3 minutes or so. My hummingbird Bundt Cake takes about 58 minutes each time.

pecan, pineapple, and banana cake batter in glass bowl and shown again in a Bundt pan.

pineapple and banana Bundt cake in pan with yellow linen.

Cinnamon-Spiced Cream Cheese Icing

To get the attractive drippy look you see pictured right here, beat collectively equal elements softened cream cheese and butter, then add in confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, and—the shock addition—a bit heat milk. This makes a cream cheese icing that’s simply the appropriate consistency for adorning this hummingbird Bundt cake. I additionally stir in a sprinkle of cinnamon for an additional kiss of spice, however that’s utterly non-compulsory.

Spoon the icing over the cake slowly; it can start to drip down the edges, and you should use the spoon to assist information it the place you need it to go.

End with a sprinkle of toasted pecans, and this hummingbird cake is able to fly… proper off the cake stand! (The one pictured is that this one. It’s stunning in individual!) You might additionally enhance the iced cake with coconut, like I do with this coconut Easter cake.

cream cheese icing with cinnamon in glass bowl with red spatula.

pineapple and banana Bundt cake cut with 2 slices on a green and pink floral cake stand.

slice of hummingbird Bundt cake with cream cheese icing on white plate with gold fork.

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