Nici Wickes: Hummingbird Cake

I make a few versions of the mighty hummingbird cake but this is an easy, light, manageable version. I like to describe this cake as a banana cake that goes on a Jamaican holiday.  

Serves 8-10   

 

Ingredients   

• 1 ½ cups plain flour  
• ¾ cups brown sugar   
• ½ cup desiccated coconut   
• 1 heaped tsp cinnamon  
• ½ tsp each baking powder and baking soda  
• 2 medium eggs  
• ¾ cups oil – I used grapeseed oil   
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed – about 2 bananas  
• 1 cup crushed pineapple + ¼ cup juice  

  

Brown butter cream cheese icing   

• 100g butter  
• 250g full fat cream cheese  
• 1 – 1 ½ cup icing sugar  

 

Method 

1. Heat oven 180 C. Grease and line a 23cm cake tin.   
2. Take two bowls. In one put all the dry ingredients – flour, sugar, coconut, spices and raising agents. Whisk together.   
3. In the second bowl, beat together eggs, oil and bananas. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients, add the crushed pineapple and the juice and stir to combine.   
4. Scrape batter into the tin and bake for 45-55 mins or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Rest for 10 mins then turn out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.   

  

Make the icing 

1. Melt butter in a small pot until it splutters. Keep cooking until the spluttering subsides – 4-6 minutes – then it will begin to foam and brown. Cook, watching carefully, until it is browned and gives off a wonderful nutty aroma. Cool completely.   
2. Beat cream cheese and browned butter and add the icing sugar gradually. Beat until smooth.   

Split the cake through the middle and fill with half the frosting, using the remaining for the top of the cake. Serve and eat!   

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from newstalk SEDB quarter.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
It's a ten non news talks EDB. I have been
looking forward to this conversation so much. Nicki works Cook
is here this morning with I've said it, Nicki, I've
said it already. My favorite cake, my favorite cake, which
is a big call because I love a carrot cake. Yeah,
I love a carrot cake. But I only really I
got into a hummingbird cake vibe because I I've mentioned

(00:35):
them before, but I'm a huge fan of Ripe Cafe
and Deli in Auckland. Yes, and they make me of
your prey. Oh my gosh, they make this ridiculously decadent
hummingbird cake. In fact, I got one for my wife
recently and it was a classic thing where I sort
of I ordered a cake that I wanted for her birthday,
and then of course I did, and then it just

(00:57):
turns out that she loves it even more than me.
So you know that's fine.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Oh You're a match. You're a match made in heaven exactly.
And look, I agree with you. Anyone who loves a
carrot cake, actually, anyone who loves a banana cake as well,
I feel like the hummingbird cake is definitely not the
humble hummingbird cake. It really does take those two cakes,
the banana and the carrot cake, to the next level.

(01:21):
A lot of people haven't heard of hummingbird cake.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
What is that?

Speaker 3 (01:24):
You'll see it a lot in cafes, but no one
really asks, oh, you know, what's the story with it?
I like to say it is if a carrot or
a banana cake went on a bit of a Jamaican
holiday and they meet up with a bit of pineapple,
some warming spices and had a good old time and
a bit of coconut and there if you like as well,
it's awesome, it's great. Look this recipe here, so I

(01:47):
know what you mean. I sometimes make a sort of
four layered humming bird cake that is quite extravagant and extraordinary,
and if I was running right cafe, that's also what
I would do. However, this one is a nice, little,
humble version. It makes a nice, neat little cake that
you can split through the middle and put some of
the frosting in there.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
So this is what we get.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
What we do for the cake one and a half cup.
You're going to get all of the dry ingredients together,
one and a half cups of just plain flour. You
could substitute one and a quarter cups of gluten free
flour if you like. Three quarters of a cups of
brown sugar, half a cup of dessicated coconut. I don't
always put coconut in my hummingbird. You could leave it out.

(02:28):
I don't know. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. One
heat teaspoon of cinnamon. You could also put some allspice
in there as well, maybe half a teaspoon and then
half a teaspoon each of baking powder and baking soda.
Both of those are going to give our cakes some lift.
So you're going to just whisk all of that up,
all of those dry ingredients in one bowl. In another bowl,
you're going to beat together two medium to large eggs,

(02:51):
three quarters a cup of oil. I think this is
the key for this cake. It is so moist and
fantastic without being gloggy, and it's because it's got oil.
And I think that really is the key. With some cakes,
I use grape seed oil. Two do you with my bananas?
I've got too interested too ripe bananas. Two ripe bananas

(03:12):
I just throw in there, and I don't bother to
sort of mash them beforehand, because that's another dish that
I need to wash. What I do is I just
break off bits and then I beat it all together
with the oil. And then what you want to do
is you want to pour the wet mixture into the
dry mixture and then add in one cup of crushed
pineapple with about a quarter of a cup of juice,

(03:35):
and just stir all of that together till you've got
a lovely batter. Don't overmix it. Scrape that batter into
a tin I've got. You can use anything from a
twenty to a twenty three centimeat around tin that you've
greased and mined oven is on one eighty and it
takes a good while, you know, forty five to fifty
five minutes, and the price of their variation and the

(03:58):
time there is really because if you've got a smaller tin,
it's going to be a deeper cake and it'll take
about ten to fifteen minutes longer to cock. You want
to make sure a skewer comes out nice and clean,
and then rest that cake for about ten minutes before
you turn it out. And of course I wonder Jack
if the bit you really love about a humming bird
cake is the icing which has cream.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Cheese in it, I honestly think that is a big
part of it. If I'm totally which is how I
cannot at to a carrot cake. Yeah, yes, I mean
you know, it's not a bad thing. Yeah, it's not
a bad thing, especially if you can do how to
take that Yeah gone.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Sorry you go? No, no, no, Well I take my
cream cheese ic into the next level by making one
hundred grams worth of brown butter. That's that slightly burned
biscuitty kind of butter. You just melt it in a pot.
It sounds flash, but it's super easy. You keep cooking it.
It'll splutter away. Keep that spluttering going for about four

(04:55):
to six minutes until it spluttering stops. Turn the temperature
down a little bit, and then it'll start to foam
and it starts to brown because that's the milk solids
getting getting cooked, you like, and it smells all biscuity.
You want it to have that lovely nutty aroma. Cool
that completely. So I often do that this part before
I start making the cake, or whilst is cooking. Once

(05:17):
it's called you want to beat that with, you know,
two hundred and fifty grams of full fat yes I
mean full fat cream cheese, and round about one to
one and a half cups of icing sugar. And make
sure your icing sugar is nice and chilled, and that'll
stop it going too running. And you smother that all
over the cooled cake. Maybe as I mentioned at the start,

(05:39):
you know, split it in the middle and put some
of the frosting in the middle, and then you've got
this beautiful two laid cake with still a nice big
thlick layer of icing on top.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
And if you want to do what they do, dream
pat you, then it is one hundred percent of my
dream cake. You then get a little bit of like
caramel sauce, like a salted caramel be at the very
top of a little caramel sauce.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
Crawley, some crush toasted wallnuts. This is the thing. You
can go all out. It's a good cake. I expect
many of our listeners will be making this.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
This week as someone who obviously has a bit of
a sweet tooth, just a bit of one. I have
not you. I've just you said, chill your icing sugar. Yeah,
so odd that weird is that I've not heard of
it before.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
You know, I've just started doing it. I start. I've
started keeping my icing sugar in the freezer because I
had a couple of batches of icing you know, cream cheese,
if you using cream cheese or musca pony, and then
I'd put my icing sugar in it. And on these
days that start to get warmer, the whole thing turns
runny and you think, oh, I just need to add
more icing sugar. It just gets runnier and running. So

(06:47):
I asked a one. Yeah, I asked a wonderful little
friend of mine from Nippy's Eatable Art, and she's a
cake baker, and I asked her what do I do here?
And she said, oh, you really need to keep your
icing sugar in the freezer because it'll keep it nice
and chilled and then it doesn't go running. And she
is right. You get fluffy frosting if you do that.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
It's such a good tip. That is a really good tip.
Here you go, top of the text machine. Jack Nicki's
Hummingbird cake is amazing. I've had rave reviews from my
friends as it's the best cake ever. Thank you, Nicki.
There you go, good, There you go right.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
I do it. I do it periodically over the years,
and Jacket's always at about this time of year that
I tuned to the humming cake because there's not a
lot of other fruits in season. You're not making a
lemon cake, you're not making a freshberry cake with blueberries,
so you turn to your good old staples of bananas
and canned crushed fine apple grace.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
I think I know it's a win them. Thank you
so much. We're going to make sure that recipe is
up and available online NEWSTALKSDB, dot co, dot M, zed
forward slash Jack

Speaker 1 (07:48):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack team, Listen live
to News Talks hed B from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio