3 Hummingbird Cake

Nate has been enjoying my pinterest obsession almost as much as I have! For his birthday a couple of months ago, I pull up my pinterest account on his ipad and told him choose something! Well, after going through all of my pins, he chose this hummingbird cake! :-)

I can't remember why I chose to make the 13x9 version of this cake instead of the 9 layer one as shown below but I think it might have been because we were taking the cake somewhere and obviously the flat version is easier to transport. May next year I'll make the sky high one!

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Sky-High Hummingbird Cake 

1 cup pecans, finely chopped 

3 cups all-purpose flour  

2 cups granulated sugar  

1 teaspoon baking soda  

1/2 teaspoon salt  

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon  

3 large eggs, lightly beaten  

1 cup safflower, sunflower, or corn oil (I used vegetable oil) 

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract  

8 ounce can crushed pineapple (and the juice)  

2 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 4 bananas) 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) with rack in middle of oven. Prepare three 8" round cake pans with butter/oil spray and a parchment circle on bottom of pan. Set aside.  

In large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside.  

In a separate large mixing bowl, combine lightly beaten eggs, vanilla, pecans, oil, bananas, and pineapple. Pour into dry ingredients and stir with wooden spoon until combined. Divide batter evenly into 3 prepared 8" round pans. Bake until toothpick comes clean from centre of cake (about 30 minutes). Don't open oven for first 20 minutes, then rotate pans, checking after 10 more minutes. Try not to overbake! Let cool on wire racks for 20 minutes, then inverting onto racks, removing parchment paper, until cool to the touch.  

Fluffy Cream Cheese Icing

*Enough to frost and fill an 8″ round 6-layer cake

1/2 cup (1 stick, or 115 g) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 x 8 ounce packages cream cheese, cut into cubes, cold

2 lbs (about 7 1/4 cups icing sugar (confectioners)

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Using electric mixer, combine butter and icing sugar until just combined. Add cold cream cheese, all at once, and beat on medium speed for about 4 minutes. Turn up to high speed for another 1 minute. Should be fluffy. Don’t overbeat, or the icing will start to lose thickness.

*To fill and frost the sky-high 8″ version of this cake, you will likely need to increase the icing recipe by 50%

Assembly Tips and Tricks:

Wrapped baked layers in saran and refrigerate for a few hours before torting them

Always put a large piece of wax or parchment paper under the cake board (with the cake on it) while you work on icing the cake, to keep your turntable or other surface clean

Use small offset palette knife to spread icing between layers, and large palette knife and bench scraper to smooth icing onto sides when crumb-coating

Refrigerate crumb-coated cake until icing is no longer sticky before applying top decorative icing layer

Refrigerate completed cake overnight, if possible, before slicing 

Sweetapolita