Hummingbird Cake
Ingredients
Cake
Cream Cheese Frosting
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or spray 3 round 8-inch pans and line the bottom with parchment paper and butter the top of the parchment paper as well. Place pecans on baking sheet and toast for 5-6 minutes, until lightly browned and fragrant. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Then finely chop the pecans.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ONE cup of the chopped pecans (reserve half cup for frosting). In another large bowl, beat the eggs, oil, bananas, pineapple (with the juice), and vanilla until well blended. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just combined. Make sure you scrape the bottom of the bowl to check for pockets of flour.
  3. Evenly divide the batter between the prepared pans and bake for about 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and set on cooling rack, after about ten minutes release the cake from the pans and allow to cool completely.
Frosting
  1. In a large bowl sift the powdered sugar and set aside. Using a stand mixer, beat together the room temperature cream cheese, softened butter, vanilla and salt until smooth and slightly fluffy about 3 minutes. with the mixer on low speed add the sugar two cups at a time. Once you’ve added all the sugar, scrape the bottom of bowl with spatula and turn the mixer on medium high speed and beat really well until very smooth.
  2. First to ensure the cake layers are all even, cut the domed part of the cake with a serrated knife. You can use the cake scraps to make cake pops or eat them like I did 🙂 To assemble the cake, place one cake on your serving platter. Spread with about a third of the frosting. Gently place the other cake layer on top, repeat with third layer and spread the rest of the frosting over the top and sides of the cake. Take the reserved 1/2 cup of chopped pecans and decorate the cake any way you like!