Hummingbird cake: a bake from America’s Deep South

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Bakes: 40 minutes

400g crushed pineapple, darined

2 bananas, very ripe

200g vegetable oil

250g light brown sugar

3 eggs, lightly forked

75g pecans, chopped

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon fine salt

250g self raising flour

For the icing

300g icing sugar, sifted

100g unsalted butter, at room temperature

125 g cream cheese, cold

  1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and line the base of two 8 inch cake tins.
  1. Mash the bananas and stir through the crushed pineapple, mixing in the vegetable oil, eggs and sugar.
  1. Stir together the self-raising flour, salt and cinnamon. Stir this into the wet mixture until thoroughly combined, then fold through the pecans.
  1. Divide the mixture evenly between the two cake tins, and bake for 40 minutes, or until the sponge is risen and golden and, when pressed gently with a finger, springs back. Remove from the oven, set to one side for ten minutes, release the sponges from the tin, and leave to cool completely.
  1. Make the icing by creaming the butter and icing sugar together, and then folding in the cream cheese until smooth and thick – don’t over whip or it will become runny.
  1. Remove the greaseproof paper from the base of the cool cakes. Spoon half of the icing onto one of the sponges, place the other on top of it, and spoon the second half of the icing on top of that. If you’d like the icing to firm up a little, refrigerate the cake before you serve.

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