Hummingbird cake is something that I really fell in love with making in 2024, when I made this really tall one featuring a ginger cream cheese namelaka and a miso caramel. Generally speaking, a hummingbird cake consists of a lightly cinnamon-spiced banana cake that may or may not have pineapple, pecans, and coconut in it, a cream cheese frosting, and the entire thing is adorned with more pecans, coconut, and/or candied pineapple to finish. It is a Southern staple, originally from Jamaica, and it a very popular cake choice for weddings. I personally love this kind of cake because it uses all kinds of fruits and I love using cream cheese in desserts, so it was just an added plus. Hilariously during season 10 of Masterchef, I had the option to make one, but I opted for a German chocolate cake instead because it was a replication challenge, and I liked the design of the German chocolate cake better than the hummingbird cake that I would have had to replicate. That being said, fast forward to so many years later, and here I am, making a hummingbird cake that is dreamy, deceptively technical, and honestly worthy of being one of my new signature desserts! I seriously love this cake, because each component is an homage to different things I have learned over the years as a baker, and this recipe will be one that I will make for years to come.

When it came to conceptualizing this recipe, I wanted to take that naked hummingbird cake I had made, and do some tweaks to it so that to make it prettier to look at and a little easier to execute. While my bougie self loves a namelaka like nobody’s business, a cream cheese frosting would suffice if done well. One of my childhood triumphs in the kitchen was making a cream cheese frosting that required no powdered sugar; you create a sugar syrup and whip that with the cream cheese and butter for a less sweet, more aerated frosting! I remember still doing that for the first time when baking cupcakes with my family friend Stephanie because we did not want to buy powdered and granulated sugar to make cupcakes with. So instead, I made a simple syrup and whipped that into cream cheese and butter. When it worked, it was a personal lightbulb moment, as I realized that not all frosting recipes needed heaps of confectioner’s sugar to taste good. For this recipe’s frosting, I also wanted to add in more pineapple throughout the recipe, so that’s why I landed on a pineapple-ginger cream cheese frosting for this cake, using pineapple juice for that syrup base. I included ginger too since it adds a warming effect that tempers down overtly sweet flavors, and is one of my mom’s favorite ingredients. I wanted this recipe to sort of evoke a comforting feeling, and for me anyways, ginger is comfort because of my mom loving it so much. I also had to keep the miso caramel, because pairing that with a banana cake is an instant flavor bomb, and it actually plays off of the pineapple and the cream cheese frosting beautifully! I adorned the cake with toasted coconut, candied pineapple, and toasted pecans, all arranged to give this cake a very homemade feel, and just for the silliness of it, arranged some of the crystalized pineapple and a pecan to sort of look like a little butterfly in the center of the cake.

In terms of the technical aspects of this recipe, please keep in mind I measured almost everything for this recipe in grams. I apologize in advanced, but it was just easier to do, because the cake itself needed to use really ripe bananas, and I felt that measuring that out by weight was easier than trying to either use a liquid measuring cup or cramming those bananas into a dry measuring cup. If you do not have “as dark as my soul”-ripe bananas, I recommend sticking them in the freezer the night before, because that will cause all of the sugars in the banana to expand, so that when they thaw, you can peel the bananas and be left with super ripe banana paste, perfect for baking with! For the cake batter, I used two fun techniques here beyond just the bananas. I heated up my butter with the coconut flakes, just to both make brown butter and toast the coconut flakes simultaneously. What’s nice here is that you can see the coconut turn that nice golden-brown color in the butter, so it gives you another visual indicator to help you not burn your butter. Additionally, that toasted coconut brown butter adds that extra layer of nuttiness to the cake batter! I also made essentially a buttermilk by curdling some milk with pineapple juice. I was able to find at my local grocery store a gigantic Dole brand can of pineapple juice for only $4, so that’s what I used for this recipe, but you can also just blend up fresh pineapple into juice for this recipe too, whatever is easier. By using the pineapple buttermilk, the cake has that added springiness from having a cultured dairy product used in it!

For baking the cakes, I recommend using two 6-inch ring molds. The first time I made this recipe, I tried to use just one 6-inch ring mold, and was going to slice the cake horizontally to form two layers. However, the challenge I ran into with slicing this cake into separate layers was that the pecan pieces that I baked into the batter got caught on the knife and would tear the layers up. So instead, by using two cake rings to bake half the amount of batter in each, it makes every aspect of this recipe easier. The batter being separated means that the cake rounds bake and cool faster, they also bake off as flatter layers, and were just easier to assemble with. I also found that my initial recipe, even though it used one egg, that quantity actually made enough batter for two 6-inch, two-layer cakes, or 12 whole servings. So I wound up halving my recipe(fun fact, 25g of beaten egg is roughly half an egg), just so I did not end up with an excess of hummingbird cake. Because as much as I love having a lot of it around, that’s dangerous to my waistline. For both the frosting and the caramel, if you are not comfortable cooking sugar to soft ball(for the frosting) or dark caramel(for the miso caramel) stages by eye, I recommend using a laser candy thermometer for precision. So long as you have a candy thermometer, it’ll be even easier to execute those two components. I did use a bit of gelatin powder in the caramel, since that “T5 Caramel” was a technique I picked up at Milkbar for a spreadable caramel that can be used in layer cakes.

Makes one 6-inch cakes(6 servings):
105g ripened banana
68g dark brown sugar
28g unsalted butter
10g unsweetened coconut flakes
23g pecans, coarsely chopped
70g all-purpose flour
.5g salt
.1g ground cinnamon
1.5g baking soda
55g whole milk
25g pineapple juice
2.5g vanilla extract
25g whole egg, beaten

In a bowl, whisk together the ripened banana with dark brown sugar. In a nonstick pan, melt down the unsalted butter. Once the butter is melted, increase the heat to high and stir in the coconut flakes and pecans, mixing until the butter and coconut flakes begin to brown. Pour the contents of the pan, scraping the bottom of it, into the bowl with the banana and fold that through. In another bowl, sift the flour, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda. In a third bowl, combine the whole milk, pineapple juice, vanilla, and egg. Alternate between folding the flour and the pineapple-milk into the banana mix until everything is fully combined to form your batter. Line 4 6-inch ring molds with cooking spray and place them onto a lined sheet tray. Divide the batter evenly between the four pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes. Allow the cake rings to fully cool before carefully removing the baked cakes from them. Store in an airtight container in the freezer until time to assemble.

For the ginger-pineapple cream cheese frosting:
116g cream cheese
38g unsalted butter, softened
25g pineapple juice
.5g salt
25g granulated sugar
2.5g ground ginger
2.5g vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste

In a bowl, whip together the cream cheese and butter until smooth, creamy, and spreadable. In a pot, bring the pineapple, salt, sugar, and ginger to a boil. Once the liquid reaches 230 degrees F, pour it over the cream cheese mixture and whip until combined. Finish by mixing in the vanilla. Keep refrigerated until time to assemble, rewhipping it right before assembly.

For the miso caramel:
.5g gelatin powder
30g whole milk
15g heavy cream
5g white miso paste
7g unsalted butter
50g granulated sugar
.5g vanilla extract

In a pot, mix together the gelatin powder, milk, heavy cream, miso paste, and unsalted butter. Then heat up the pot on low heat until the gelatin and butter are fully dissolved into the rest of the liquid. In another pan, heat up the sugar until it reaches 300 degrees F and is a dark brown color. Add to the sugar the milk, stirring on low heat until the caramelized sugar is fully dissolved into the milk. Take the caramel off heat and stir into that the vanilla extract. Allow the caramel to cool down at room temperature until it is just lukewarm before using to assemble.

For assembly:
15g toasted pecan halves
7.5g toasted coconut flakes
15g diced candied pineapple
2 candied pineapple slices

Divide the frosting into 4 equal portions. Frost each cake round with the frosting. Then divide the caramel into 4 equal portions and drizzle on top of each cake round. Sprinkle half of your toasted pecans, coconut flakes, and pineapple pieces onto two of the cake rounds. Then place the un-adorned rounds on top of those. Then arrange the pineapple slices and pecans to resemble butterflies and place those into the center of each cake. Adorn the edges of the top layer with the remaining garnishes to finish.