Hummingbird Cake

I made this cake for my mum's birthday, as she had requested a fruit-filled cake. A Hummingbird cake is, to my understanding, a banana and pineapple cake, with spices like cinnamon and allspice thrown in, and toasted nuts for extra jazz. I've been wanting to make it for a while, but haven't had the opportunity. Now was my chance. I baked her two layers of Hummingbird cake, frosted and filled the cake with a cinnamon buttercream and then covered the cake with fondant. I used the fondant as I wanted to try some "cake art" - using concentrated food colourings (mine are from Wilton), I painted a Hummingbird on top of the cake (as well as some flowers). I'm no artist, so I was so happy when my mum immediately knew what kind of bird I'd attempted (before I'd told her what the cake was).
The cake itself I am told was delicious (I'm allergic to bananas so couldn't give you my opinion!), and it looked and smelled amazing. The spicing gives it an extra dimension of flavour (as well as a slight Christmassy feel because of the cinnamon), and the cake easily serves 12.

Makes one 20cm cake (two layers)

Ingredients:

For the cake:

• 190g (1 & 1/2 cups) chopped walnuts
• 370g (3 cups) self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground mixed spice
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 ripe bananas, mashed
• one 200g can crushed pineapple
• 3 eggs
• 160ml (2/3 cup) vegetable oil
• 1 & 3/4 cups (350g) soft light or dark brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the buttercream:

• 200g (7/8 cup) softened butter
• 400g (4 cups) icing sugar
• 1-2 tbsp milk
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger

To finish:

• 500g ready to roll fondant
• Concentrated gel food colourings

Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180c (160c fan)/355f/ gas mark 4. Grease the bases of two springform 20cm round cake tins and dust the bottoms and sides of the tin with a little flour.

2. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, and pour over the chopped walnuts. Bake for around 5 minutes, until toasted (they'll smell strongly of toasted nuts when they're ready).

3. Pour the toasted walnuts, flour, cinnamon, mixed spice, brown sugar and salt into a bowl and stir briefly (making sure the break up the sugar if there are any lumps).

4. Make a well in the centre of the mixture and pour in the oil and eggs. Beat briefly until evenly distributed.

5. Add the mashed bananas and the pineapple and fold in until evenly distributed. Divide the mixture between the two cake tins.

6. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until lightly springy to the touch, and a skewer inserted into the centre has no uncooked mixture on it (it may be a little wet due to the pineapple). Leave to cool in the cake tins for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

7. For the buttercream, beat the butter until is very soft and spreadable. Sift over half of the icing sugar and 1 tbsp of milk, and beat in. Once you can no longer see any icing sugar, add the other half the icing sugar, the cinnamon and ginger, and beat. If the mixture seems very stiff, add more milk, a teaspoon at a time. It is ready when it is easy to spread, but holds it's shape.

8. To assemble the cake, level both cakes by using a serrated knife to trim off any dome of the baked cake.  Place a tablespoon of buttercream on your serving dish/board.

9. Place your first sponge on the board/dish, pressing down lightly to stick the cake to the board. Top with a third of the buttercream and spread evenly over the top of the sponge.

10. Place the second sponge on top of the first, and press down lightly. Cover the top and sides of the cake with the remaining buttercream. Use a palette knife to smooth the tops and sides (this will help when you put the fondant on the cake). Place the cake in the fridge for around 10 minutes.

11. Dust your work surface with icing sugar, and roll the fondant out until it is around 25cm in diameter (and a rough circle). I roll the fondant out on a silicon mat as I find the fondant is less prone to stick to it than my work surface.

12. When ready to cover the cake, take the cake out of the fridge. There are two ways to transfer the fondant. I transferred mine by rolling the fondant over a non-stick rolling pin and then gently moving the rolling pin over the cake (unrolling the fondant over the cake in the process). If you've used a mat, you could also simply flip the mat onto the cake, then unpeel the mat off to reveal the fondant.

13. Quickly but gently, ease the sides of the fondant down over the cake. If you come to a crease, unfold it and lightly press down. If you notice any air bubbles on top of the cake, use a pin to pop them. If you notice air bubbles on the side, gently smooth the fondant down, effectively pressing the air out of the bottom of the cake. You can then use fondant smoothers to smoothen out the sides and top of the cake.

14. Leave the cake to firm up for at least 1 hour. Paint your cake as desired - I used Wilton food colourings and sugarcraft paintbrushes, and just had a go. Have fun with it :)

15. Enjoy!