The BEST Hummingbird Cake Recipe with Cream Cheese Frosting (2024)

FAQs

Why is my hummingbird cake dry? ›

Your hummingbird cake can be dry due to common mistakes, such as draining your crushed pineapples. Don't drain your crushed pineapple before adding it to the recipe; make sure you're using it along with its juice, which imparts not only tons of flavor, but exquisite moistness, too.

Room temperature ingredients: It is essential to use room temperature yogurt and eggs for fluffy Hummingbird Cake – or any cake! Room temperature ingredients whisk together more easily and are hard to overmix resulting in a softer, fluffier, more tender cake. Cold eggs result in a dry, denser cake.

If you're not familiar, hummingbird cake is a spiced pineapple-banana cake topped with cream cheese frosting and pecans. Maybe it's the pecans that lure me in or the way the taste fools me into thinking I might just be eating a fancy piece of banana bread with a little cream cheese. Good for you, right?

The ratio of wet to dry ingredients determines a cake's moisture level. If there's simply too much flour and not enough butter, a cake will taste dry. On the other hand, if there's too much milk and not enough flour, a cake will taste too wet. Finding the right balance between wet and dry ingredients is key.

On their own, boxed cake mixes have a structure that's loose and airy. But if you add ¼ cup flour or half a box of instant pudding mix, the texture of the cake becomes denser and tighter, ideal for a pound-cake-like consistency that will hold the shape of a Bundt pan.

"Prepare, bake, and cool the cake completely. Then, wrap each cake layer in cling film, nice and tight, and place in the fridge for at least two hours," he says. That's right, you won't be frosting your cake at room temperature; a chilled cake is essential before applying any frosting. "This step is the most important.

If the oven temperature is too low, it will take longer for your cake to set which may cause the centre to collapse as it cools, leading to a dense final product.

Created in Jamaica where the dessert is called the doctor bird cake (or Dr. Bird cake), it is named after the island's national bird, the scissors-tail hummingbird (locally known as the doctor bird).

Cream cheese frosting should always be stored in the refrigerator. Cream cheese is a perishable food, and per FoodSafety.gov, perishable foods should not sit in room temperatures for longer than two hours.

This is essentially a banana cake, with crushed pineapple, reduced pineapple juice, chopped pecans, and warm spices that taste like the Caribbean. In addition to one amazing cake, this is filled and frosted with the best cream cheese frosting I've ever made, and it comes together quickly and easily.

What cake flavors go well with cream cheese frosting? ›

Chocolate cake, vanilla cake, pistachio cake, red velvet cake, lemon cake–this community loves them all.

No lumps in cream cheese.

While you can over-whip the frosting after you add the heavy cream, you cannot over-mix the 1st 3 ingredients in the recipe. Beat the cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla extract together for as long as you need to rid all of the cream cheese lumps.

Powdered sugar – Aka confectioner's sugar. It thickens and sweetens the frosting. Make homemade powdered sugar, or use store-bought.

If you use a cup rather than a scale there's a good chance you're using too much flour: up to 20% too much, if you use the measuring cup as a scoop then tamp the flour down. Any baked good — especially cake —with too much flour will be dry, hard, crumbly …

Using an air-tight container is the best and easiest way to keep your cake from getting exposed to air. However, if you don't have one of those, you can wrap your cake in cling film, or if it's iced, place a large inverted bowl over it to trap the air.

If you have too much flour in a recipe and not enough fat, like butter or oil, your cake is going to be dry and hard.

A dry cake is usually the result of one of the following pitfalls: using the wrong ingredients, making mistakes while measuring or mixing the batter, or baking the cake too long or at too high a temperature. Once you understand which common cake-baking blunders to avoid, you'll know how to bake a moist cake every time.