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| Hummingbird gift from a friend |
Everything holds a history, particularly
delicious desserts. Take pie, for example, spelled “pye” in medieval England. Remember
the nursery rhyme “Sing a Song of Sixpence”? Indeed, at one time in British
culture, live birds flew from pies in surprise entertainment for children at suppertime.
Not
as wildly exciting, but wonderful nonetheless, I remember my mother standing
before the kitchen counter forming perfect balls of dough with her hands. The
synchronized sound of her rolling pin on the countertop often roused
expectation of relatives for dinner.
There was no such
thing as one pie for dessert in Mom’s kitchen.
Although
famous for her flaky piecrusts, Mom also baked spice cakes and iced them in
peaks of seafoam frosting. Her chocolate and banana-nut layer cakes with
smooth, buttercream frosting also developed a palate for culinary excellence.
Mom’s
cookbooks I inherited also prove these favorites merely scratch the surface of the
pastries she served her family, neighbors, and relatives.
Considering
this heritage, when my friend Marilyn gifted me a darling glass hummingbird
last January, I hung the yellow-winged trinket below a kitchen cabinet for cheerful
company. To my delight, on rare sunny days, the hummingbird’s yellow head and
green beak cast sunbeams while I cook and clean.
One
recent day, while pondering what pastry to serve Marilyn and our fellow tea
friend, Anne, for our February gathering, I recalled someone raving about the
Hummingbird Cake.
Yes! That’s the
perfect dessert to serve, I decided, and consulted my “Better Homes and
Gardens” cookbook, Mom’s “Pillsbury” cookbook, and Volume I and II of “The
Gourmet Cookbook.”
Not one
Hummingbird Cake recipe.
Surprisingly, my
more modern Southern cookbooks do not include the recipe, either.
Reluctantly, I visited
the Web and found a plethora of Hummingbird Cake recipes with common
ingredients. Furthermore, I learned this supposedly world-famous cake is
a Jamaican dessert introduced in the 1960s by the Jamaican Tourist Board.
This explains why
Mom never baked a Hummingbird Cake, and why the recipe does not appear in
cookbooks published in the 1960s.
Known in Jamaica as
their “Dr. Bird Cake”, so named after their national bird, the hummingbird,
they use their local pineapple, bananas, and spices to stimulate their tourist
industry.
The pliable recipe
settled into the U.S. South, the likes of “Southern Living” magazine and Paula
Deen creating their version once they got hold of the Jamaican recipe. This
explains the recent, rapid growth of the cake in contemporary accounts of
American cooking, and then the world’s.
Consuming generous
amounts of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger, the dense, moist cake smothered in
cream cheese frosting and heavily garnished with toasted pecans, we cleaned our
plates.
Dear
Reader, although there is no such thing as one kind of cake or pie on my table,
I’m certain the Hummingbird Cake is destined to return.
Oh,
and the sherry glass filled to the brim with dark chocolate ganache, with the
pot of steamy Earl Gray tea, completed our culinary experience entirely. And
the ladies took plenty cake home.
Hummingbird Cake (350 degrees)
3 cups flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon each nutmeg and ginger
½ teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2 cups mashed very ripe bananas
8 oz. cup crushed pineapple
¾ cup vegetable, or olive, or coconut oil
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
2 cups toasted pecans
Frosting
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
3 tablespoons butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
1-2 tablespoons milk
· Toast 2 cups pecans in oven. Grease and flour 2 round baking pans or bundt pan: place 1 cup pecans in bottom of pan(s)
·
Blend
flour with dry ingredients; add wet ingredients, pour into pan(s)
·
Bake
for one hour or until cake is dry with toothpick test; cool cake for two hours
·
Meanwhile,
whip cream cheese with remaining ingredients for frosting. Pour over cake and
sprinkle with remaining coarsely chopped pecans
