Hummingbird Cake (without the feathers)

Yep, I made this.

I've got no idea why Hummingbird Cake is called Hummingbird Cake.  I can only speculate that its because of how sweet it is.  In fact, before a few weeks ago I'd never even heard of it.  

When I started the blog I often debated whether or not to tell colleagues (especially colleagues on my secondment.  I mean I wanted them to like me and thought that to let them see my silly little mind might not be the best idea).  When I kept bringing in baked goodies to work I got questioned on why I was always baking and having got to know 1 of my colleagues well I finally let on to my dirty little baking secret and she seemed quite enthusiastic about it (well people are...to your face).  I told her that I was very happy to take requests so she sent me a link to Sweetapolita's sky-high version of the Hummingbird Cake.  I was less happy about my enthusiasm about letting people put in requests.

Now I put off making this on the basis that it really looks far too fancy for just normal baking so I decided to wait until the right opportunity, a birthday preferably.  April rolled around and brought 4 birthdays in my team in the space of a week.  There are only 9 people in my team.  Time to attempt the Hummingbird Cake I thought....

I had a look on the web and found a recipe on Joy Of Baking's website and when I looked at the Sweetapolita recipe I noticed that she had also used the Joy of Baking recipe as a starting point.  They both looked good so I kinda worked back and forth between the two, using the Joy of Baking recipe but the Sweetapolita method on constructing the cake.  As usual, the actual recipe is in italics and my additional commentary is in normal font.

The recipe from the Joy of Baking and Sweetapolita

For the Cake:

1 cup (110 grams) pecans, toasted and finely chopped
3 cups (390 grams) all-purpose flour
2 cups (400 grams) granulated white sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup (180 ml) sunflower oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 x 8 ounce (227 grams) can crushed pineapple, do not drain
2 cups mashed ripe bananas (3-4 medium sized bananas)

For the Frosting:

1/4 cup (57 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
8 oz (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature
1 lb (454 grams) (about 3 2/3 cups) confectioners (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
1 tsp (4 grams) vanilla extract

Garnish:
pecan halves

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

I even bought new pans! Exciting times...no seriously

2. Chop the pecans.  I used one of my favourite kitchen tools - my Pampered Chef Food Chopper.  Its great, you just put whatever you want to chop underneath and bash the top, ideally focusing on someone you really dislike or something that is pissing you off then bang, bang, BANG!  All done.

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

4. I could only find pineapple rings so I simply blitzed the pineapple chunks using a stick blender.  I then mashed the banana.

5. In a separate large mixing bowl, combine the lightly beaten eggs, vanilla, chopped pecans, oil, bananas, and pineapple.  Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until combined.  

Looks a little vomity, right?  Tasty.

6. Divide the batter evenly into 3 (remember, I only used 2) prepared 8" round pans. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean from the centre of the cake (about 30 minutes - I don't know if my oven is playing up but I definitely had to keep the cakes in for a good 50mins). Don't open oven for first 20 minutes, then rotate pans, checking after 10 more minutes. Try not to over bake! Let cool on wire racks for 20 minutes (in the tins), then invert onto racks, remove the parchment paper and let cool until cool to the touch.  Wrap the cakes in foil and put in the fridge overnight (this makes them easier to slice).

7. Remove the cakes from the fridge and unwrap from the foil.  Taking a bread knife carefully and evenly cut each cake into 3 thin layers.

8. Then onto the icing...Using electric mixer (how generic, of course I turned to dear Berta), combine the butter and icing sugar until just combined.  Now I had some problems here, possibly due to the fact that I realised I only had fondant icing sugar.  The butter and icing sugar just refused to combine so I had to take some drastic measures.  I needed to warm the butter enough to be able to combine it with the icing sugar.  I thought that actually heating it would be a mistake so instead I took a bowl of lukewarm water and put the mixing bowl into the water - enough to warm the sides of the bowl (its metal).  This definitely helped and put the icing back on track.

9. Add the cold cream cheese, all at once, and beat on medium speed for about 4 minutes. Turn up to high speed for another 1 minute. It should be fluffy (mine wasn't but again I believe this is all down to the fondant icing sugar). Don't over beat, or the icing will start to lose thickness.

10. Onto assembling the cake!  Taking one of the bottom layers spoon a big blob of icing into the centre and carefully spread the icing to evenly cover the cake.  Always cut side down, place the next layer on top and repeat the process.  Repeat with the remaining layers.

No, there is no Tabasco in the cake.

11. Spoon the rest of the icing onto the top of the cake and, using a palate knife, smooth it all across the top of the cake easing it to the edge and down the sides (this was how I had to do it because of the consistency of the icing.  I think it would be more spreadable and less drippy with regular icing sugar).  Make sure the cake is evenly covered and decorate with a couple of pecan halves.

12. Carefully transfer to your serving dish! (I transferred it to my brand new spotty tins to take into work.  I love my new spotty tins)

This cake is quite sweet but fantastic and serves plenty.  It went down very well at work and every last crumb was eaten.  If you want a cake to impress - this is the one.  Personally I found it was best served off ducky paper plates that were left over from one of Posie's parties but obviously you do not have to recreate this ;)

I'm all up for gratuitous self-promotion!

I'm just banana's about my Kitchenaid

When we first moved back from the good ole USofA back in '07 we paid an exorbitant sum of money to have the contents of our very tiny 1 bedroom apartment shipped to the sunny climes of Leyton in East London*.  It took forever and we slept on a blow up double for about 2 months but finally the day came that they delivered all our junk.  We unpacked the boxes and Mister set about getting the desktop PC up and running.  I believe he used a step-down (well, I hope, but am pretty certain) but all I recall was hearing a bang and running into the spare room to see smoke pouring out of the vent in the PC.  Not a good start.  Now, you would have thought that we would have learned from this first experience (I mean, as a human you're meant to learn from your mistakes right?), but not us.  For some reason (although I do believe that this one was the hubster's fault) the Dyson was then plugged in.  Yet another pop, no smoke, but dead Dyson.  In one fell swoop we had managed to kill 2 of our most expensive appliances.  Then we learned. My most prized posession was the black Kitchenaid my mother-in-law kindly bought me and there was no way in hell I was going to risk my Kitchenaid.  

So poor Kitchenaid (I should really give it a name, perhaps Berta) sat lonely in its box for nearly 5yrs.  Then last week I was having a chat with a colleague who was talking about the Kitchenaid she had bought her husband.  I was supremely jealous.  She encouraged me to look into getting an adapter she had seen on Amazon and to take the plunge and bring Berta (yes, I like Berta) out of her box.  By the middle of the week I was asking my Daddy-o for specific advice on voltage and wattage and step downs (oh my!).  Yes, this is where I reveal that my father is a sparky (well, he can't fix your telly but he can do a blinding plan of your electrical schematics for an off-shore living platform....).  I'm not sure why I hadn't properly discussed it with him before but I finally asked him about the Kitchenaid/converter situation.  After many texts, most of which I really didn't understand, he advised that Berta should survive with my step-down.  

Wicked.

Now, following my Gluten Free Banana Bread post I had promised another colleague, a gluten intolerant (that doesn't sound right does it?  makes it sound like she's personally "anti-gluten" not that she has a genuine medical issue), that I would bake my Banana Bread and bring it into the next meeting.  This morning we had a meeting...

Ok, I know this isn't a "new" recipe but I amended it (read: improved!) and added a new component.  Firstly, I pulled Berta out of her box and with great trepidation plugged the step-down in, then plugged Berta into the step-down.  I switched on the step-down.  Holding my breath I moved the lever to "stir".  Berta worked.  No smoke.  No bang.  Just purring motor.

I kissed my Kitchenaid.

I was back in business and in a great mood.  I set about making the recipe as previously posted but with these tweaks:

Firstly I was making normal muffins (not mini muffins) - the mix makes around 12 large muffins or 18  smaller muffins.  I also used spotty muffin cases.

Secondly, tweaks to the basic recipe:

90g caster sugar (instead of 110g)

4 large ripe bananas (instead of 3)

1 tsp of baking soda (in addition and added at the same time as the other dry ingredients)

Thirdly, streusel topping (gluten free!):

75g soft brown sugar

70g granulated sugar

85g rice flour

3/4 tsp ground nutmeg

60g unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

To make the streusel topping, mix the sugars, flour and nutmeg together.  Add the butter cubes and rub the mix together using your hands until it becomes the consistency of bread crumbs.  

Spoon the topping (about a tsp per muffin) onto the muffins and press gently onto the surface of the muffins (the streusel recipe makes quite a lot so I had a fair amount left over).  Then pop the trays into the oven and bake for around 35mins (just keep an eye on them).  Cool on a wire rack.

I took the muffins into work and they went down very well with my colleagues (in fact several people had more than one and all 18 were gone).  My favourite response was "that's good sh*t".  Job done.

But.  What sort of mother (or wife) would I be if I baked something I know my daughter loves and then didn't let her have anything??  And since I had my dear Berta back in my life and was very much enjoying using her...I of course baked another batch.  Again, slight differences catering for the particular audience:

Firstly, I made a loaf since hubster prefers it like this (so he can spread butter all over it and then fry it...) so you will need to lightly butter the loaf tin.

Secondly, although I used the same tweaks to the basic recipe above I also replaced the 50g cornflour with 50g ground oats (I blitzed them in a little blender).

So basically mix the recipe as usual and pour into a loaf tin (preferably bigger than mine - I was a little lazy and should have either split the mix between 2 loaf tins or poured it into my larger glass loaf dish but meh, not the end of the world).

Spoon on the streusel topping (like I said, I had a lot left over, and still had some left over after topping the loaf and have put it into the freezer to see how well it freezes) and gently press into the batter.

Bake for about an hour.

Leave in the tin to cool until the tin is cool enough to handle, slide a knife around the edge then ease the loaf out of the pan.  Put the loaf on a wire rack to cool.

Mange mange mange!!

I love how I said to the hubby I was just going upstairs to write a short blog post.  Yep, real short.

*Incidently I stuck it out for 6 months in a flat that's main architectural features were a hole in the ceiling in the bathroom and 2 beautiful patches of mould in the spare bedroom and the living room.  Following a stabbing on the high street I had had enough and begged hubster to move back to my roots in Highgate. 

baby muffins prease

Having a toddler in the house we tend to always have an abundance of fruit, and because of that same toddler and her ever changing opinion on food these days ("no mummy, no like!"), we sometime have an abundance of fruit on the verge of going to that great compost heap in the sky.  Saying that, it always ends up being bananas so we always make banana bread or muffins with them.

My husband has never liked cake (weirdo) but always loved sweet breads (not sweetbreads, that's an entirely different thing, and in my opinion, gross).  Back when we lived in the US and during my "I'm-waiting-for-my-visa-so-I-can't-work-so-I'll-aim-to-be-a-Martha-Stewart-type-housewife-but-better-than-Martha-Stewart-and-without-the-criminal-record" phase, I found a great banana bread recipe which I've played around with ever since.  And, it happens to be gluten free.


Ok, so this isn't technically a new recipe but it was tweaked slightly both accidentally and purposefully this weekend.

The recipe - Gluten Free Banana Bread

110g/4oz butter (softened)
110g/4oz caster sugar
2 large eggs
3 large ripe bananas (the more over ripe the better)
175g/6oz rice flour
50g/2oz cornflour
2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt

- Set oven to 180c/350f/gas mark 4
- butter loaf/mini muffin pan
- cream butter and sugar until pale/light/soft
- add eggs to the creamed sugar one at a time and beating well in between
- mash bananas and add to the sugar/egg mix
- sift rice flour/corn flour/baking powder/salt and fold carefully into the mix
- bake 11/4 - 11/2 hours for loaf / 25min for mini muffins (although watch these as the time does seem to vary oven to oven!)

"What was different?" I hear you scream with desperation (or was that me).

Batch No. 1 (the "Harpenden Half-Batch" that ended up not being gluten free)
On Saturday, having noticed that the bananas had gone black but only having one egg in the fridge, I decided to divide the quantities in half and make a smaller batch, however:
- I didn't particularly want half a banana lying around so I threw 2 bananas in (instead of 11/2 - look at me doing maths!).
- I have a couple of different jars of flour none of which are labelled and assumed (incorrectly) that the smaller jar of flour had rice flour in.  It didn't.  It was corn flour.  But I had already added it to the bowl so decided to live dangerously.
- Because of the corn flour incident, I replaced the corn flour I should have put in with self-raising flour.

I made mini-muffins (which my daughter still calls baby corn muffins, irrespective of the fact that these are not baby corn muffins) which were pretty damn more-ish albeit a little on the sweet side (and no longer gluten free).  That being said, there are very few left 2 days later.

Batch No. 2 (the "Berko Batch")
My daughter and I took a trip to my mother's house for Sunday lunch whilst the hubby was off at sports practise.  My husband told me today that he thinks I have ADD, and in true form whilst at mum's house I noticed she too had some black bananas.  She had asked for the recipe so I offered to make her some muffins.  The differences were planned this time, so:
- My mother has always been into weird and wonderful things and suggested I use something called "Kuzu" instead of the corn flour.
- The bananas were on the small side, so I used 5 instead of the suggested 3.
- I threw a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (for no good reason other than I felt like it) to help the muffins rise.

I made big muffins this time and the official taste tester (the bubba) devoured a whole one so by all accounts, the results were good.  I had a bite and they tasted great but with a little bit of a bitter aftertaste.  I think the aftertaste is down to the Kuzu, however this could also be down to the fact that without reading the instructions on the Kuzu box I tried to crush the Kuzo into a powder and then sift it in with the rice flour.  I then read the instructions on the Kuzu box and it says to dissolve the Kuzu into a little cold water first.  My impatience shoots me in the foot yet again...

My mother is taking them with her to a course for pilates instructors.  I await their feedback with baited breath!

So, what did I learn?  When you assume you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me".