A Little Birdie Told Us...

The Amish Bird Symposium was last weekend, and like every year, we loved having old and friends and new scour the grounds for some fantastic bird watching. For those of you who couldn't make it, we wanted to share a great recipe for Hummingbird Cake, a not-too-sweet layer cake that we thought appropriate for our birding friends. Try it for yourself and let us know what you think! (The recipe also makes great cupcakes!)

Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

For the cake:
3 c all purpose or cake flour
2 c sugar
1/2 t salt
2 t. baking soda
1 t cinnamon
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 1/4 c canola oil
1 1/2 t vanilla
1, 8 oz can of crushed pinepple, well drained
1 c chopped pecans
2 c chopped banana

For the frosting:
16 oz cream cheese, room temp
1 c butter, room temp
2 lbs confectioners sugar
2 t vanilla
chopped pecans for decorating

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and cinnamon. Add eggs and oil and stir until ingredients are moistened. Add vanilla, pineapple and pecans. Add chopped banana, which should be ripe but still firm enough to stay chunky in the cake batter - do not use overripe bananas as you would for something like a banana bread. Divide the batter evenly between 3 greased and floured 9" cake pans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. When done, let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before turning them out on a cooling rack.

While the cakes are cooling, you can make the frosting. Combine cream cheese and butter and beat until smooth and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar a little at a time, and try to forget that you're using two pounds of it - it'll be worth it, we promise! Stir in the vanilla. When the cakes are fully cooled, frost the tops of all three, then stack and frost the sides. You can cover the top in pecans, cover the sides or make any kind of design you like.

We'd love to show you a picture of what it should look like, but it was nothing but crumbs by the time any of us thought to document it for posterity. Silly us. So send us your pictures! Who knows, there might just be a free shipment of granola in it for the best looking Hummingbird Cake!