Recall the memories of those tropical nights, the fresh air at the seaside, sunkissed skin, delicious fruits from the market and lots of sunshine with this Hummingbird Cake.
Ingredients
Crust
- 350 g flour
- 350 g sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 3 ripe bananas
- 300 g pineapple chunks from tin, drained
- 250 ml olive oil from Reinos de Taifas
- 1 pinch of salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 50 g chopped pecans
Caramel sauce
- 150 ml water
- 250 g sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 250 ml double cream
- 1 tbsp Anánusz sauce - pineapple-chili favoured BBQ sauce from Sárréti Chilifarm (optional)
Caramel-cream cheese filling
- 400 g icing sugar
- 150 g butter, room temperature
- 180 g cream cheese
- 4 tbsp caramel sauce, room temperature (add more for more intense flavour)
Caramelised pecans
- 50 g pecans
- 150 g sugar
- 50 ml water
Instructions
Crust
- Add the dry ingredients: flour, sugar and cinnamon and baking powder into a mixing bowl.
- Pace the bananas and pineapple chunks into a separate bowl and mash them with a fork. Add them to the dry ingredients, together with the chopped pecans.
- Add the olive oil, eggs, vanilla extract and salt, mix the ingredients well.
- Divide the batter between 2 lined cake tins.
- Bake each layer in the preheated oven, at 180 °C, for about 45 minutes or till it's passing the toothpick test.
Caramel sauce
- Combine the water, sugar and salt in a saucer over medium heat. Stir until the sugar syrup starts boiling, then simmer without stirring it until it becomes golden brown. Shaking the saucer and swirling can help even caramelization.
- When it starts to become medium brown in colour, immediately add the cream and reduce the heat to medium-low.
- Stir it constantly with a heat-resistant spatula, simmer for about 3-5 minutes.
- Stir in the vanilla extract.
- Set the sauce aside to cool for 15 minutes then pour it into a jar to cool completely.
- Caramel will be runny while warm, but thicken as it cools, turning just a little chewy when cold.
- Refrigerate up to 2-4 weeks in an airtight container.
Caramel-cream cheese filling
- Soften the butter, add the cream cheese and mix them with a hand mixer.
- Gradually add the icing sugar.
- Finally, incorporate the caramel sauce (at room temperature).
Caramelised pecans
- Spread the pecans on parchment paper.
- Combine the sugar and water in a saucer, bring it to a boil without stirring. When it's golden brown, remove the caramel from the heat and drizzle over the nuts. Wait till the caramel sets completely in a few minutes.
- Place the caramel-coated pecans into a food processor and chop them roughly or place them in a freezer bag and crush them with a rolling pin.
Assembly
- Place one crust layer on your cake stand.
- Add a generous amount of the cream filling and cover the surface of the bottom crust layer, a palette knife gives a nice result.
- Place the second crust layer on top.
- Heap the remaining cream filling on top, use your palette knife to cover your cake evenly. At the edges, a straight scraper could help a lot.
- Pour the caramel sauce on the top, you can let it run down on the side as I did.
- Sprinkle the crushed, caramelized pecans on top and decorate with any other elements you wish. I used the top part of fresh pineapple, caramel and fresh lime.

Hummingbird Cake - Photo by © Reka Csulak

Hummingbird Cake - Photo by © Reka Csulak