Hummingbird cake

 

   C and I have a dinner of southern style food on New Year's Day. Having a New Year's Day dinner is something that my family has done for as long as I can remember. C and I started having southern food as a bow to his heritage several years ago. 

  Normally if it is just the two of us I don't make dessert. There is plenty of sweets from Christmas to eat. This year we had some friends eat with us so I felt like I needed to have a dessert. I wanted to make something that would be served in the south. It also had to be something on the light side to balance out the heavier meal we were eating. After looking through several lists, I found the perfect thing. Hummingbird cake.

   The first and only time I had hummingbird cake was in a restaurant in Charleston. It was wonderful. It is a banana cake with pineapple and pecans in it frosted with cream cheese icing. It was one of the best desserts I had ever had and a perfect ending to the meal.

   I looked at several recipes some of them very complicated. I finally found one that used a box of yellow cake mix and a few other things. It looked perfect to me. I was a little crunched for time so I got a can of cream cheese icing to use. 

   After work on Friday I made the cake. It went together very quickly. The recipe said to grease and flour the cake pans, something I've never done. I did  it anyway because I was worried about the cake sticking. I put my round cake pans in the oven to bake. The smell of the cake baking was wonderful and the batter I sampled from the side of the bowl. (Yes, I do sample the batter from the bowl before I wash it.) was really good. My rule is that if the batter or dough is good most likely the finished product will be good.

   When the cake was done I took the pans out. They looked good. Once they cooled I covered them and put them in a cool place. I was not going to put the cake together until Sunday before dinner.

   When Sunday rolled around I took the cake pans out. I had a nice cake plate that I got from my mother that I planned to use. I ran a butter knife around the edge of the pan and the cake came out. It took a me a few minutes to decide what side I wanted up. Once I had the figured out I frosted it the top and side of the first layer. Crumbs got into the frosting. I did the best I could to keep that from happening. Then I put the next layer on top and frosted it. I was worried I wouldn't have enough frosting so I was very sparing with it. After I got the entire cake frosted, I had some icing left so I spread more on the thin parts.  It wasn't the prettiest icing job. I tasted a little of the frosting. It tasted like sweet chalk. Not cream cheese at all. I should have made my own icing instead of buying it.

   After dinner, I served the cake with apologies for the icing. It was a hit. Everyone liked it a lot. I was pleased. We gave our guests a couple of pieces so they could have some at home.

   I had some for breakfast this morning. (Yes, Sometimes I have cake for breakfast.) It was just as good and maybe better than when it was fresh.

  I will definitely make this again. The next time I will make my own icing and I won't frost each layer separately. (Maybe I'll also get a spatula to use instead of a butter knife.....)