this cake has to be one of my favourites, I decided to adapt my favourite Nigel slater banana bread recipe and make it into a humming bird cake which is a banana, pineapple and pecan cake, I used coconut too. to make this recipe even more special I created some pineapple lime jam to fill it with, and Laura E Patrick a super talented calligrapher made some pretty printable labels for you to put on your own jars and wrote the jam recipe out in here beautiful writing. I made some pineapple flowers to go on top too, they take a while to do so I normally make them the night before.
cake recipe
- 90g crushed pineapple
- 1 cup plus 1 tbsp. 235g muscovado sugar
- 2 cups 250g plain flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 eggs
- 2 bananas
- 1/2 cup 125g butter softened
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- handful of pecans chopped
- 3 tbsp. desiccated coconut
- pinch salt
directions
preheat the oven to 180c 350f grease and line two small cake tins
in a bowl sift together flour, baking powder and salt then add the chopped pecans and desiccated coconut and set aside. with a mixer beat the butter and sugar together until creamy, then add the eggs one at a time, mixing for 3 minutes between each one.
mash the bananas with a fork and mix with the pineapple then stir into the mixture and then add the vanilla extract.
fold in the dry ingredients and then pour into the tins and bake for about 40 to 50 minutes.
for the frosting
300ml double cream
250g mascarpone cream cheese
100g coconut cream
5 tbsp. icing sugar
4 tbsp. honey
in a mixer whip the cream and mascarpone with the coconut cream and icing sugar then add the honey and whip until thick. to assemble cake add some jam onto one of the sponges then add some cream and add the next layer then coat the cake in the rest of the frosting and sprinkle some desiccated coconut onto it. to decorate I made some pineapple flowers to do this I sliced a pineapple thinly with a mandolin slices and dried them out in a low oven at 100c for about 2 hours turning every half an hour, I then set them in a muffin tray to get the flower shape. I candied some pecans in maple syrup too. I heated some maple syrup in a pan until it reached a rolling boil then I tipped some pecans in and then spread it on a piece of baking paper to harden.
laura e patrick drew these labels below to put on the jam jar.
I am crushing on this flavour SO hard!! Really beautiful cake too!
Your photos are AMAZING!!! I want to try everything!!
thankyou so much xx
Beautiful cake!! Love how you decorated it and it sounds amazing! Lime jam?! Yes!
thankyou eden xx