Hummingbird Cake

Ahh Hummingbird Cake, the beautiful combination of pineapple and banana covered in cream cheese icing! I don't think I have ever made one before now but my mother has made it for my family more than once. A little out of the ordinary for me but I wanted to try out some icing techniques and thought something a little exotic would do nicely.

I found this icing technique on Pinterest and just had to give it a go. Although it uses a fair bit of icing, it is very simple to do and the result is quite impressive.

Hummingbird Cake

Recipe adapted from Leela Bean Bakes

What you will need

2 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup Canola oil

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cup mashed bananas, about 3

225g crushed pineapple

1 cup finely chopped pecans

2 tsp vanilla

Icing

Adapted from OurBestBites

750g cream cheese

3/4 cup butter

2 cups icing sugar, sifted

2tsp vanilla 

Toasted coconut

What you will need to do

Preheat your oven to 180*C. Line two cake tins the same size and set them aside.

In a bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together. In a separate bowl, combine the sugars and eggs and whisk together. Next, add the oil and whisk until uniform in consistency. Then whisk in the mashed bananas and crushed pineapples, followed by the vanilla extract.

Add the dry ingredients into the egg mixture and fold together. Then fold the pecans into the batter. Do not over mix.

Divide the batter into your prepared pans and bake for about 30 minutes or until cooked through. Let your cakes cool slightly in the tin then turn out onto a cooling wire.

To make the icing, beat together the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until light and fluffy. Add the icing sugar and whisk until smooth.

When the cakes have cooled completely, put a layer of icing on top of one and top with the second cake. Next do a crumb coat of icing all over the cake and put in the fridge.

When the icing has set, bring out the cake.

Sprinkle the toasted coconut over the top of the cake.

Place the remaining icing into a piping bag fitted with an inch size round nozzle. Pipe 3 round blobs of icing down one side. 

Using an off set spatula the same size as the blob, press and drag the blob so it goes from thick to thin.
Repeat for each blob and then repeat with another row until you go around the whole cake. Finish off with 8 rounded blobs on the top and garnish each with a pecan.

Lime and Pineapple Macarons

Welcome to Sugar, Butter, Cream. I have started this blog to share my recipes and creations with other lovers of all things sweet and delicious! What better way to kick off the blog than with my very favourite tasty treat, the Macaron.

I made these Lime and Pineapple Macarons to decorate the top of a Pina Colada Cake, which I will post about at a later date. I decided to keep the shells the original almond flavour and just bring the lime and pineapple flavours through the fillings. I usually fill my macarons with a chocolate ganache however this time I opted for a cream cheese icing filling for that extra tang that would compliment the lime and pineapple juice.

I coloured the lime macaron shells green and the pineapple shells yellow using Winton gel colours (much better than the watery food colours!). It didn't take much at all to get a nice pastel colour. I wanted to avoid making the shells too bright as I feared when they were on top of the cake it would lose the Pina Colada feel and look more like an Australia Day cake.

My macaron recipe is ever evolving, it is definitely not perfect yet, and so each time I make them I adjust the ingredients in search for an even better result. There are some very important steps to master when making macarons but I have found most people have their own technique. I will include as much detail as I can, but I found reading lots of different macaron recipes the best way to develop my own technique.

For the Basic Macaron Shell

What you will need

• 3/4 cup almond meal
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 2 egg whites at room temperature
• 1/4 cup caster sugar
• Gel food colours

What you need to do

• Line two flat baking trays with baking paper.
• Place almond meal and icing sugar into a food processor and pulse until fine.
• Meanwhile beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Add caster sugar and beat until light, fluffy and shiny. At this stage, add a small amount of food colour and beat until evenly coloured. I made one batch for green and one batch for yellow.
• Sift the icing sugar mix into the meringue mix. Stir the mix until combined. Fold mixture until it reaches the correct consistency. It should slide slowly in the bowl when tilted.
• Place mixture into a piping bag fit with a round nozzle, i use a size 3. Pipe 1 inch rounds onto the trays, leaving and inch between each round. Tap the tray on your bench to burst any big bubbles in the shells.
• Preheat oven to 150*C. Leave trays on bench to form a skin on the shells. They are ready to put into the oven when you can touch the tops without them sticking to your finger, this is usually at least 30 minutes.
• Bake for 12 minutes or until the bottoms start to brown slightly. Your macarons should have developed little 'feet', when this happens, REJOICE! 
• Cool on trays then transfer to a wire rack.

For the Cream Cheese Icing 

What you will need

• 100g butter
• 225g cream cheese
• 375g icing sugar
• 1tsp vanilla essence
• Juice of half a lime
• 2 tbsp pineapple juice

What you will need to do

• Place butter and cream cheese into a bowl and beat until smooth.
• Add icing sugar and vanilla and beat until light and creamy.
• Divide into two bowls. Add lime juice to one bowl and pineapple juice to the other. Mix until juices are well combined. 
• Place each icing mix into a piping bag. Pipe lime icing onto half of the green shells and pineapple icing onto half of the yellow shells. Sandwich the empty green shells with the green shells with icing and repeat for the yellow shells.