Hummingbird Cake

So Kelly's post about Sunshine Cake got me to thinking about another old-fashioned favorite, Hummingbird Cake. I first heard of Hummingbird Cake on a visit to my Aunt June's in Pikeville, TN in the late 70s. Of course, being all of about 14 years old, I was convinced she was making confections out of sweet, innocent little birds and was naturally horrified. Once she convinced me that wasn't the case I dug in to find a dense, moist cake flavored with bananas, pineapple and pecans and then slathered with thick cream cheese frosting - divine. Really cream cheese frosting on anything - right?

The cake first appeared in a 1978 issue of Southern Living magazine and has since become a southern staple. Here's a recipe from Art Smith - no actual hummingbirds were harmed in the making of this recipe.

Servings: Serves 12

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups chopped ripe bananas
• 1 cup drained crushed pineapple
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs , beaten
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup (4 ounces) finely chopped pecans

• 8 ounces cream cheese , at room temperature
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter , at room temperature
• 1 pound confectioners' sugar (about 4 1/2 cups sifted)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

To make the cake, position racks in the center and bottom third of the oven and preheat to 350°. Lightly butter two 9" round cake pans, sprinkle evenly with flour and tap out the excess. (If you wish, butter the pans, line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper, then flour the pans and tap out the excess.)

Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt into a bowl. In another bowl, stir or whisk the bananas, pineapple, oil, eggs and vanilla until combined. Do not use an electric mixer. Pour into the dry mixture and fold together with a large spatula just until smooth. Do not beat. Fold in the pecans. Spread evenly into the pans.

Bake until the cake springs back when pressed in the center, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer the cakes to wire racks and cool for 10 minutes. Invert the cakes onto the racks (remove the parchment paper now if using). Turn right side up and cool completely.

To make the icing: Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the cream cheese and butter in a large bowl until combined. On low speed, gradually beat in the sugar, then the vanilla, to make a smooth icing.

Place 1 cake layer, upside down on a serving platter. Spread with about 2/3 cup of the icing. Top with the second layer, right side up. Spread the reaming icing over the top and sides of the cake. The cake can be prepared up to 1 day ahead and stored, uncovered in the refrigerator. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before serving.

Sunshine Cake

by Kelly

It looks like the heat wave may be over! It's only supposed to be 83 degrees tomorrow. Brrr! That's almost twenty degrees cooler than Thursday.

So in honor of the extremely hot and sunny weather which has now come to an end, I thought I would put up a certain recipe. Not that long ago, I posted a review for Mary Meade's Kitchen Companion, a 1950's cookbook that recently came my way. In one of the chapters was a mysterious, off-hand reference to a 'sunshine cake'. Specifically what she said was, "The egg leavened cakes: This group includes angel food, sponge cake, 'sunshine cake', jelly rolls and others...they contain no fat or baking powder."

I couldn't help but wonder why this was called a sunshine cake. Was this just a fancy name for ordinary yellow cake? Was it lemon or orange flavored? Orange in color or usually frosted with orange icing? Something that could only be made in the summer because of ingredient availability? A cake to brighten a rainy day?

I have always been a lover of mysteries, and there was no listed recipe for this cake, so I began to search. Google presented me with a few possibilities, and many of them did involve oranges, pineapple, and lemons, and modern ingredients like Cool Whip. But I knew the recipe must pre-date 1955, when The Kitchen Companion was published, so I looked for very old cookbooks on Project Gutenberg, and began to browse through them online.

Surprise! I found 'Sunshine Cake' in a very old cookbook entilted 'Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus'. So here it is, in all its glory. Oh, and why is it called 'Sunshine Cake'? Well, the answer to that question is in the recipe. Have a look and see if it jumps out at you.

Sunshine Cake -- Cream one cup of butter, add two cups of sugar and beat, add one cup of milk, the yolks of eleven eggs beaten until very light and smooth, and three cups of flour sifted with four teaspoons of baking powder three times to make it very light. Turn into a tube baking pan and bake three-quarters of an hour in a moderate oven.

No wonder this recipe didn't survive to the modern day! Eleven egg yolks for one cake would make any modern dietician choke on his decaf coffee.

For another version (without the baking powder, which Mary Meade suggested in her book) visit this link to my man's belly. Her recipe is from the 1900's, and there is a beautiful photo of the cake itself.

So what do you do with the remaining lonely egg of the dozen, after you make this cake? Well, if the weather is hot enough, you could try to fry it on a sidewalk and see what happens.

Heat Wave

by Kelly

It's officially 102 degrees Fahrenheit here today. To give you an idea how hot that is, here's a picture of the poor robin family nesting on our garage.

So let's see...102 degrees Fahrenheit....that's 39 degrees Celsius.  Hmmm...

And look, our personal thermometer is only showing 100 degrees!


Nope. Things still don't seem any cooler. Maybe I'll wander down to the river and dip my feet. See you!

Fourth of July and Herbie

by Kelly

Red...

White...

and Blue...

Happy Fourth of July!

(Insert fireworks here, unless your town is lame like ours and already did them. Oh well.)

P.S. Yes, Herbie payed a visit to our town. How cool is that?

Chicken Scratch Embroidery or Depression Lace

by Kelly

Chicken scratch embroidery is basically Smyrna stitch (a cross stitch with an extra cross, so that it looks like an asterisk) done on gingham fabric. When done right, it looks like lace and is a cheap and easy way to decorate the edges of ordinary gingham aprons and curtains, and jazz them up a little. That's one reason why it was so popular during the Depression, I guess.

via Tie One On

I have been wanting to try chicken scratch embroidery for quite a while now, but didn't have any gingham fabric. So a few days ago, I broke down and actually bought some, instead of waiting for it to magically appear in my crafting bag. Two dollars worth of fabric and I was all ready to finally give this a try.

It's very easy to do, if you already know how to cross stitch. The results aren't the same, because it's usually done with only two colors - white and the darkest shade of the gingham you're using, whether it be red, blue, or whatever. On the other hand, there's no fooling around with charts or multiple colored skeins, either, which is a plus.

The fabric I bought is pink. My mom would laugh if she found out that I bought pink fabric, since I was so vehemently anti-pink for so many years. Even in the thick of the '80's I wouldn't wear pink, and no amount of persuasion by the mighty fashion industry would break me down. Luckily, my mom is as anti-computer as I was once anti-pink, so she will never read this.

I'm using size 30 variegated crochet thread, which is working out really well. I have come up with what I think will be a really neat idea using this graduated color scheme, so we'll see how it turns out. Stay tuned :)

Meanwhile, if you have some gingham and want to use it for something other than Chicken Scratch embroidery, Tie One On (a blog about aprons and making aprons, in case you're wondering) is currently running a sew along with a gingham theme. Check out her blog for more details.

Show and Tell

by Kelly

A new sea green shawl and about twenty more crochet hexagons. This hexagon blanket won't be too small, unlike the first one I made.


I have a pair of jeans that I've never been very happy with, so I decided to turn them into jean shorts. Luckily, my sewing skills have improved greatly since the first pair I ever made, when I was 13, and I'm fairly confident that I can do it now. In fact, I made a pair last year that I've been wearing constantly.

So, of course, I've set my sights really high, and decided to try something new....

via ievos pievos

Jean shorts with lacy crochet trim! How crazy cool is that? Am I the only one who thinks these are awesome? I don't care if I am...I'm making myself a pair anyway. Or at least, I'm going to try to. If you'd like a pair too, visit ievos pievos and check out her tutorial first.

The Picnic Basket

by Kelly

Ah, picnic baskets. Packed with potential, but you never know what might be inside. There are so many dietary plans and restrictions these days - vegan, organic, gluten free, peanut free, low-carb, and the list goes on and on. If you have an appetite for a traditional picnic, and open the lid of the basket to reveal a bottle of distilled water and a bag of low-calorie rice cakes, imagine your disappointment.

Well, would you like to see what's inside? Could it be southern fried chicken? Hot dogs? Is there orange creme soda? Potato salad? Apples and French cheese? Blueberry yoghurt and a burn notice? Fava beans and a nice Chianti????

Hmmm.....embroidery supplies. Some people might be disappointed. Me, not so much.