Hummingbird Cake

Hummingbird Cake.
It may be the best cake I have ever tasted or made.  Mr. Husband and I were first introduced to Hummingbird cake during our visit to Mammy's Cupboard.  I don't do many repeat recipes but this one has now made it as both mine and Mr. Husband's birthday confectioneries this year.

I found a basic recipe in a book I own called "The Treasury of White Trash Cooking" by Mickler & Mickler, but added a bit of my own this and that to it.

Hummingbird Cake Recipe

3 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/4 cups canola oil

3 pre-beaten eggs

22 oz can crushed pineapple, not drained

2 tsp coconut extract

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup shredded coconut

2/3 cup mashed banana (about 2 bananas)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Stir in eggs and oil.  (Do not use an electric mixer for mixing this cake). Blend in extract, whole can of pineapple, nuts, banana, and coconut.  Spoon batter into greased and floured cake pans. Should be more than enough batter for three 9 inch round cake pans.

Hummingbird Icing

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 cup softened butter

16 oz powdered sugar

(optional: 1 tsp coconut extract, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts)

Cream together butter and cream cheese, adding small amounts of powdered sugar to the mixture til all is cohesive. Blend in extract and add nuts. I like to add the nuts on top of the iced cake rather than mixing them in.  I think it looks better.

The cake pans I used were some I got from a 50 ¢ a pound bin sale from a thrift store.
They were a premium you could order from Spreckels Sugar Company (since 1898, still in business today).

Mine is missing the small top cake pan, it probably wound up on the bottom of the bin, or even in another bin across the store.  But it would be an easy fix using an empty potted meat can!