Simple Tropical Birthday Cake
As part of Emily’s Tropical themed birthday party I had to make a birthday cake. When it comes to tropical there really was only one choice – Hummingbird Cake. This is a favourite with us. I have made this cake for many years and the recipe I use is from an old Women’s Weekly Cookbook called Classic Cakes. I tried to find a link to the recipe but unfortunately the Hummingbird Cake that’s on the Womens Weekly site is not the recipe I used.
The cake
This recipe is moist and delicious. You don’t need any special equipment to make it which is great. The original recipe called for vegetable oil. I don’t like vegetable oil so I use coconut oil instead and I think it’s a great addition to the flavour of the cake.
I wanted the cake to be a tall layered cake so I made two cakes in 20cm round cake tins. Each cake was then cut in half.
The icing
Of course you can’t have hummingbird cake without cream cheese frosting!! I used cream cheese frosting between the layers and top of the cake. A light layer of frosting was also used around the outside of the cake. I wanted a naked cake look for this cake rather than a thick layer of frosting. With this style of cake there is no need to be too fussy about the finish of the icing it will look good without too much effort.
A tropical birthday cake would not be complete without coconut! I used fresh coconut and Raffaellos to decorate. A flashing happy birthday sign and some faux green foliage finished the look. It was a simple finish but I think it looked great and really fit the theme for the night. Best of all it was stress free.
If you want to see how the whole birthday party turned out head to my Tropical Themed Birthday Party post.
Hummingbird Cake with cream cheese frosting
Equipment
- Stand mixer for Icing
Ingredients
Hummingbird Cake
- 450g can crushed pineapple in juice
- 150 gram plain flour
- 75 gram self-raising flour
- 1/2 tsp bicarb soda
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 220 gram brown sugar
- 40 gram desiccated coconut
- 1 cup mashed banana (around 2 large bananas)
- 2 eggs (lightly beaten)
- 180 ml coconut oil
Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting
- 113 gram softened butter
- 226 gram cream cheese
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 550 grams Icing Sugar
- 1/2 lemon, zest and juice
Instructions
Hummingbird Cake
- Preheat oven to 160°C (fan forced). Line and grease a 20cm round cake tin.
- Drain pineapple, using a spoon to remove as much liquid as possible. Retain 60ml of the juice.
- Whisk together flours, sodas, spices and sugar in a large bowl.
- Stir in pineapple, reserved liquid, coconut, banana, eggs and oil and mix until well combined.
- Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Stand cake in pan for 5 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
Lemon Cream Cheese Icing
- Beat butter and cream cheese on high until creamy and well combined.
- Add lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla and mix together.
- With the mixer on low speed gradually add the icing sugar until well combined and smooth.
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