Hummingbird Cake with Petal Tutorial

Have you ever heard of Hummingbird Cake?

It's a southern recipe.

It is a banana-pineapple-walnut-spice cake with cream cheese frosting.
I also added applesauce in place of most of the oil.

If you like banana bread, you will LOVE this cake!
It is moist, dense and so delicious.

Plus, you get to use some of those over-ripe bananas in your freezer!
(Please tell me that I am not the only one with a plethora of bananas in my freezer...)

Hummingbird Cake

by Bird On A Cake

Ingredients

Hummingbird Cake

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 eggs
• 8 oz. can crushed pineapple (with juice)
• 2 cups diced ripe bananas
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 1 8 oz. package cream cheese (softened)
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (softened)
• 6 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Hummingbird Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of three 8 inch cake pans with wax paper, and grease the sides.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add applesauce, oil, eggs and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Stir in pineapple, bananas and walnuts. Divide equally into prepared pans.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Allow to cool on a rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting

In a large bowl, cream butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Mix in the vanilla. Add the sugar a few cups at a time, beating until fluffy.

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Now I'm going to show you how to decorate it with a petal technique.

A yummy recipe and a decorating tutorial...it's a Two-fer!

This design was inspired by My Cake School.
I think it is my new favorite - so easy and so pretty!

• Cover your cake with a crumb coat (very thin layer of frosting).
• Prepare a decorating bag with a large round tip (Wilton #12).
• Pipe a vertical line of dots on the side of your cake.
• Use a small spatula to press down on each dot, dragging to the right.
• Make another line of dots, just to the right of your petals. Repeat.

For the top of the cake, I did the same technique in circles.
A spiral would have worked even better.

FYI, this cake will have a "back side". When you get back to where you started,
you will have a seam where the petals meet up.

You should give it a try!

Enjoy!