Hummingbird Cupcakes

Ahhhh mid week baking. With my oven FINALLY fixed, I can now produce baked goods at home – Yippeee!
It hasn’t been working for many many months, so I would always have to do my baking at my mums house (which had it’s pro’s & con’s). The pro’s being: bigger kitchen, oven that works, mum to help and all the ingredients I need. Con’s being that I have to transport all the baked goods back to my house, which isn’t always easy.

When it comes to baking with bananas, the rule is the browner the better. I had some lovely ripe-for-baking bananas sitting in my fruit bowl that were calling out to be made into something delicious, but something a little different to my usual banana cake.

Hummingbird cake has been on my list of things to make for a while now. I don’t think I have actually ever tried it before, but as it looks so delicious in all of the pictures, I thought it was about time I attempted to make it for myself.

Now I don’t really know what to compare this recipe to, but it was delicious! It was wonderfully moist with chunks of pineapple strewn throughout cake. I think it would be nice with some roughly chopped pecans in it, just to add another dimension to the texture.

I garnished mine with some shredded coconut which I toasted off in the oven.


Hummingbird Cupcakes
1 x 450 g can crushed pineapple
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup mashed over ripe bananas (about 2 bananas)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup vegetable oil

Cream Cheese Frosting
100 g butter, softened
1 x 250 g cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 1/2 cup icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Celsius fan-forced) and line a 12 hole cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

Drain pineapple through a fine sieve, pressing out as much syrup as possible, reserving ¼ cup syrup. Sift flours, soda and cinnamon in a large bowl. Stir in sugar and coconut. Make a well in the centre. Add combined bananas, eggs, oil, pineapple and reserved syrup. Mix until combined. Pour mixture into prepared cupcake pans.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until the cupcakes are light golden. When they are ready, a skewer or thin-bladed knife inserted into the centre of a cupcake will come out without any batter attached.

Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for about five minutes, and then place them on a wire rack to cool completely.

Cream cheese frosting: Beat buffer, cream cheese and essence in a small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in icing sugar until smooth.
Spread or pipe onto the cooled cupcakes and garnished as desired.