Hummingbirds are colorful overseas birds, and the cake named after her is just a storehouse of sweets and tropical fruits. And if the bird did not come out in size, then the dessert can be prepared as large as you wish. It will be tasty, juicy, and for adults sweetened there are recipes with cognac impregnation.
Hummingbird Cake - General Cooking Principles
• Sponge cake with slices of bananas, pineapples and pecans - the basis of the classic Hummingbird cake. There are recipes in which walnuts are used instead of pecans or a biscuit is baked without them at all.
• The components of the dough are simple, and its preparation does not require long whipping. Pineapples are cut into small pieces, bananas are kneaded with a fork or a crush, nuts, if used, are chopped with a knife, but not crushed. The crushed components are combined with eggs scattered in butter, after which bulk ingredients mixed in a separate bowl are added to them. The dough is kneaded with a spoon until smooth.
• Usually bake from two to four cakes, but often they cook just one biscuit, which is cut into pieces after cooling. If you want to bake cakes individually, and only one form, the remaining dough is temporarily placed in the refrigerator.
• Fruit blanks are obtained moist and do not require additional processing. They can only be slightly soaked to complement the taste of the cake.
• You can smear cakes with any cream, the main thing is that it is not cloying, the sweets of the biscuit itself are more than enough. They try to reduce the excessive sweetness of the cream by adding lemon juice, or by layering it with fresh fruits or berries.
• Decorate the Hummingbird cake with caramelized nuts, specially prepared walnut caramel - Brittle or chocolate sauce (topping). Ganache is brewed from chocolate, a dense layer of which covers the surface of the cake. Fresh and hard canned berries and fruits, crushed chocolate may be suitable as decorations. There are no special design requirements.
The recipe for a classic hummingbird cake with pecans
Ingredients:
• three large, always fresh eggs;
• 3 bananas;
• sugar - 300 gr.;
• refined oil - 250 ml;
• 130 gr. pecans;
• a spoonful of liquid vanilla extract;
• 250 gr. canned pineapple slices;
• 85 ml of pineapple syrup;
• cinnamon powder - 1/2 tsp;
• 5 gr. soda;
• Extra salt - 0.5 tablespoons;
In cream:
• high fat sour cream - 300 gr.;
• sugar, freshly prepared powder - 2 glasses;
• zest from one medium lemon;
• 350 gr. creamy fresh cheese.
For impregnation:
• 100 ml of cognac;
• freshly squeezed lemon juice.
For registration:
• a full glass of pecans;
• two tablespoons of honey;
• 0.5 tsp crushed cinnamon;
• granulated sugar - 50 gr.
Cooking method:
1. Combine the sifted flour with cinnamon in a large bowl, add salt and sugar. Pour the oil into the dry mixture, and lightly loosened eggs, pineapple juice and mix. You do not need to beat, knead, achieving uniformity of mass. At the end, enter the vanilla extract.
2. Grind nuts, bananas and pineapples, mix them in the dough. Cut nuts with pineapples into small pieces, and mash bananas with a crush. Do not interrupt with a blender, otherwise the dough will turn out rare.
3. At the bottom of the mold with removable sides, put parchment, rub the sides with vegetable oil. Put a quarter of the dough into it and set to bake for 25 minutes. Bake four cakes.
4. Peel the zest from the lemon with a fine grater. Cut the fruit, squeeze the juice and filter it.
5. Beating the cream with a mixer, gradually introduce all the powdered sugar. Continuing to beat, pour 1/2 lemon juice, put the whole zest and cream cheese.
6. Put honey in a small bowl. Add cinnamon with sugar and melt over low heat.
7. Cover the baking sheet with parchment and spread on it nuts well-soaked in honey mixture, prepared for decorating the cake. Then place them in a hot oven (150 degrees) for 8 minutes, and then cool well.
8. Put one of the cooled cakes onto a dish. Pour cognac impregnation, coat with cream. Lay the next cake on top of it and process it the same way.
9. When the cake is assembled, cover with the remaining cream and garnish with caramelized nuts.
Hummingbird Cake Recipe with Walnuts
Ingredients:
• walnuts, dried nuts - 100 gr.;
• 390 gr. wheat flour;
• a spoonful of vanilla, crystalline sugar;
• 380 gr. regular granulated sugar;
• eggs - three large;
• a spoonful of cinnamon powder;
• soda - 1 tsp;
• 230 gr. canned or fresh pineapples;
• bananas - 400 gr.;
• 180 ml of quality olive oil.
In cream:
• 250 gr. thick cream cheese;
• a small lemon;
• vanilla crystalline sugar - 1 tbsp. l .;
• a glass of refined sugar;
• high-fat butter - 60 gr.
For Brittle:
• walnuts, pulp - 50 gr.;
• a spoon of water;
• half a glass of sugar.
Cooking method:
1. Sprinkle the biscuit nut kernels on a baking sheet and bake them for ten minutes in the oven. Then cool well, chop with a knife. You can kill with a blender, but not crumbs.
2. Beat the olive oil with eggs. Add the mashed bananas and chopped pineapple slices together with syrup, mix.
3. In an enameled bowl, mix the flour with chopped nuts, soda, cinnamon, vanilla and regular sugar.
4. Pour the liquid base into the bulk mixture and knead for a long time until the dough becomes visually uniform.
5. Pour half the dough into a mold, the bottom of which is lined with parchment sheet in advance, and moisten the walls with oil a little and bake at 180 degrees, until a dry match. Bake another cake and let both workpieces cool on a wire rack.
6. Prepare the brittle. Pour sugar into a dry frying pan, add water and, gently shaking the pan, stir until sugar is wet. Then set to a minimum of heating and, periodically shaking the pan, wait until the sugar has completely dissolved. Do not stir with a spoon, otherwise the caramel will take clots.
7. When the sugar turns brown, mix it with nuts and pour over parchment. Break the frozen caramel into small pieces.
8. Beat butter and cheese with regular and vanilla sugar. At the end, put chopped zest from half a lemon.
9. On one of the cooled cakes, apply half the cream and cover with the next cake. Cream the top of the cake and its sidewalls with cream, sprinkle with chopped shaving razor on top.
Hummingbird cake with fresh strawberries, under chocolate topping
Ingredients:
• three eggs;
• 1 tsp soda;
• olive or other highly refined oil - 200 ml;
• four tablespoons of pineapple syrup;
• rings or slices of pineapple in syrup - 85 gr.;
• four medium ripe bananas;
• a spoonful of cinnamon powder;
• kernels of ripe walnuts - 100 gr.;
• a glass with a hill of sugar;
• wheat flour, with high gluten - 200 gr.
In cream:
• cream, high fat - 250 gr.;
• 150 gr. powdered sugar.
To make chocolate topping:
• 100 ml of medium fat milk;
• a spoonful of corn starch;
• 30 gr. cocoa powder;
• water - 150 ml;
• 80 gr. fine sugar;
• one hundred gram chocolate.
Additionally:
• fresh strawberries - 300 gr.
Cooking method:
1. Guided by the above recipe "Hummingbird Cake" with walnuts "prepare the dough. At 180 degrees, checking the readiness with a skewer, bake the cake and put it on a wire rack to cool.
2. Place the cream packaging, a bowl for whipping the cream and the whisk of the mixer in the freezer for ten minutes. Then remove, pour the cream into a chilled container. Gradually adding powdered sugar while whipping, prepare the cream.
3. Wash the strawberries in cold water, dry the berries well from moisture and cut them into thin longitudinal slices.
4. Make the chocolate topping. Mixed with cocoa sugar pour cold water. Stir and slowly, bring to a boil.
5. Pour the starch diluted in milk into hot chocolate syrup and mix until the mixture becomes one shade. Then immediately enter the grated chocolate on a fine grater and wait for it to completely dissolve. Cool.
6. Cut the biscuit longitudinally into three layers. Put the lower one on the dish, smear it with cream, lay the pieces of strawberries on top and pour them with the cooled chocolate topping. In the same way, process the middle cake and put on it the last workpiece.
7. Cover the sides of the cake and its surface with a generous layer of cream. Gently spread out the remaining strawberry plates from above, and decorate the whole cake with topping.
Hummingbird cake with nut-free creamy curd cream
Ingredients:
• a spoonful of homemade cinnamon powder;
• 380 gr. granulated sugar;
• three eggs;
• a spoon of soda;
• wheat flour - 380 gr.;
• 250 gr. canned pineapples;
• large banana;
• 170 gr. refined oil.
For cream:
• icing sugar - 100 g .;
• 220 gr. curd cheese;
• 180 gr. sweet cream 72% butter.
For glaze:
• 60 gr. natural chocolate with 76% cocoa;
• butter - 30 gr.
Cooking method:
1. Mash the banana in mashed potatoes. Pineapples cut into small pieces and, together with the syrup, shift to a banana.
2. Add vegetable oil, pour in the eggs, pierce the yolks with the tip of the fork and mix well.
3. Sift the flour into a separate wide bowl, mix it with cinnamon powder and soda. Pour the flour mixture to the egg mass and stir well with a spoon. Divide the prepared dough into four parts.
4. Cover the bottom of the round shape with parchment, moisten the walls with oil. Transfer part of the dough into it and bake one cake, placing the mold in a hot oven. It takes up to a quarter of an hour to bake. As soon as the top of the cake is browned - get it. Transfer the hot workpiece to the wire rack to cool.
5. Bake four cakes. After they have completely cooled down, wrap them in a film and leave in it for at least an hour and a half, but more optimally - all night.
6. To prepare the cream, slightly beat the softened butter, sprinkle evenly with icing sugar and continue to whisk. At the end, enter the curd cheese.
7. Lubricate the cakes with cream, laying on top of each other, lubricate them and the sides of the cake.
8. Mix the chocolate melted with a water bath with butter and cover the resulting icing cake. Decorate to your liking.
Hummingbird Cake with Fruits
Ingredients:
• four nut-free biscuits.
For cream:
• fatty, 33% cream - 400 gr.;
• 150 gr. powdered sugar;
• elastic cottage cheese - 250 gr.
To the filling and for decoration:
• kiwi, tangerines, bananas.
Cooking method:
1. Grind the cottage cheese using a fine metal sieve.
2. Whip the cold cream with a mixer at low speeds for about three minutes. Pour all the icing sugar at once and beat further until stable peaks appear. Now add the cottage cheese and beat again.
3. Cut the bananas into thin rings, and the kiwi in half rings of the same thickness. Disassemble the peeled tangerines into slices.
4. Smear the cakes with cottage cheese cream, layered with slices of kiwi and banana. Place tangerine slices and half-rings of kiwi on a well-oiled surface of the cake.
Hummingbird Cake with Mascarpone Cream and Ganache
Ingredients:
• a teaspoon of freshly chopped nutmeg;
• 250 gr. pineapples (canned);
• a teaspoon, without a slide, soda;
• one and a half glasses of sugar;
• 390 gr. flour;
• cinnamon powder - 1 tsp;
• two medium well ripened bananas;
• 180 ml of quality vegetable oil;
• 6 large eggs.
For cream:
• 35% cream - 500 gr.;
• kilogram of Mascarpone cheese;
• 90 gr. powdered sugar.
For ganache:
• 100 gr. black 76% chocolate;
• creamy natural butter - 10 g .;
• 100 gr. liquid, high fat cream.
Cooking method:
1. Knead the dough as described in the nutless cake recipe and bake three cakes in a round shape. After complete cooling, wrap them in foil and leave for an hour and a half.
2. At maximum mixer speed, whip the cool cream. Add the mascarpone and the whole measure of powdered sugar, bring the cream to a uniform consistency and place in the refrigerator for an hour.
3. Cook the ganache. Mix melted chocolate with cream. Wait for the mixture to cool slightly and mix in the oil.
4. Apply a generous layer of cream on the lower cake, cover it with a second cake, which is also well greased.
5. Put the top cake "upside down", cover the cake on all sides with a thin layer of the remaining cream and put it away for 30 minutes in the "warm" section of the refrigerator.
6. Pour the surface of the cake with a well-cooled ganache, decorate with fresh berries or fruits.
Hummingbird Cake - cooking tips and tricks
• Only chop bananas with a fork or crush. They should not turn into a smoothie, otherwise the dough will turn out to be too rare.
• Use only high-quality oil, and best of all olive. Do not reduce its amount, it is responsible not only for the taste, but also for the moisture content of the cakes.
• Keep cooled cakes at least an hour and a half in the film. They will become wetter and absorb the cream better.
• Apply ganache only after the cake has cooled well, otherwise the cream layer will float and the whole decoration will slip.
