Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze

This Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze is simple, yet elegant. It’s moist, tender exterior will have you coming back for seconds.

I love dessert. Cake, pie, brownies, cookies… If it’s sweet, I’ll most likely fall in love with it. Sometimes I wish I could be more like my Dad. He can sit right next to a perfectly frosted cake and nothing. Not a finger in the frosting, not a sliver, not a “Is it time to eat cake yet?” plea. Nothing! Me? I’m more of a dessert-first kind of gal.

I take after my very wise grandfather. He believes that there’s a second stomach; an overflow stomach, of sorts. It’s the stomach that’s reserved for dessert, and dessert alone. Nothing else enters the dessert stomach but sweet treats. Now, not everyone has this second stomach; only a select few. Here’s how you can tell if you have a dessert stomach. You can eat a full meal, whether it be Thanksgiving, Christmas, or a five-course meal at a fancy restaurant, and still have room for dessert directly after the meal. If you can do that, then there’s a good chance that you’ve been blessed with a dessert stomach. If so, consider yourself a lucky duck.

This hummingbird cake was made for our tropical themed #BundtAMonth. Since not everyone has that very exclusive second dessert stomach, I had my family over to eat it for breakfast. Dessert first–problem solved!

My family LOVED this Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze. It reminds of a gigantic loaf of banana bread…except way better because pineapples and cream cheese glaze get added to the mix.

If I allowed myself, I could have eaten the glaze by the spoonful, shoveling spoon after spoon of creamy glaze into my mouth. It would have been a dream come true if I did.

Just look at that cake dripping with glaze and topped with toasted pecans. Who could resist?

This was my first time making a hummingbird cake. I’ve heard of it, but didn’t really know the details. Well, I researched it. Wikipedia defines it as follows:

Hummingbird cake is a banana pineapple spice cake from the United States. Ingredients include flour, sugar, salt, ripe banana, pineapple, cinnamon, pecans, vanilla, eggs, and leavening agent. It is often served with cream cheese frosting.The cake has been a tradition in the Southern United States since the mid 19th century.The first known publication of the recipe was in a February 1978 edition of Southern Living by L.H. Wiggin. It was elected the magazine’s favorite recipe in 1990, and won the Favorite Cake Award at the 1978 Kentucky State Fair. The cake has two or three layers with pecans, mashed bananas, crushed pineapple and cream cheese frosting (Wikipedia).

I decided to take the four layers and condense it into one fine-looking bundt. The result is a beautiful, moist cake without all the fuss.

I bet you’ll discover your dessert stomach after one look at this beauty.

Print Recipe

Hummingbird Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze

Yield: 8-10 servings

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

Cake

• 1 and 1/2 cups chopped pecans, toasted and chopped
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 4 ripe bananas
• 3 large eggs
• 1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple (do not drain)
• 3/4 cup canola oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Glaze

• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1 and 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2-3 tablespoons milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour your bundt pan.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.
3. Sprinkle 1 cup of your chopped pecans into the bottom of your prepared bundt pan. Set aside.
4. In a separate large bowl, mash the bananas (I find it easiest to use a potato masher). Whisk in the eggs. Whisk in the crushed pineapple, canola oil, and vanilla extract.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the banana mixture in three batches, stirring after each addition. Pour the batter over the pecans; smooth with a rubber spatula.
6. Bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan for 30 minutes; remove the cake from the pan and cool on a wire rack completely before glazing.
7. Glaze: In the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl with a hand mixer, add cream cheese and butter. Beat until smooth. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar until smooth. Beat in vanilla extract. Slowly add the milk, 1 tablespoon at a time, beating after each addition. You want the glaze thin enough to drizzle over the cake. When the glaze reaches drizzling consistency, it’s ready.
8. Drizzle the cooled cake with glaze and sprinkle with remaining toasted pecans. Serve.

All images and text ©One Sweet Mess.

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