Yields:
8 Servings
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 10 Mins
Cook Time:
1 Hr
Total Time:
1 Hr 10 Mins
This is a recipe very dear to me. It was one of the first I made at home when the idea of baking started to take form in my mind. As I had no experience and the recipe I found had a picture of a very elegant cake I was almost sure I wasn’t able to make it. But, still, I tried it! I ruined the cream and I got burnt by the sugar. Second time went better because I decided to use flowers made out of pineapple. Third time I tried the sugar again. And after that I started to alter the recipe to my own taste.
Hummingbird cake looks complicated maybe but it is easy to make as there is no special technique for it. It’s mostly all in one bowl kind of recipe.
So, thanks to Sprinklebakes’s Hummingbird cake, I give you my winter/Christmas version 🙂
Ingredients
Adjust Servings
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Sponge
- Frosting
- Decoration
Instructions
-
Sponge
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Preheat the oven at 175 degrees Celsius. Line three 17 cm cake spring forms with baking paper. Sift together all dry ingredients
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Mix by hand in a bowl or a zip lock bag all wet ingredients plus the mandarin zest and the pieces of walnuts
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Put the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and fold them well together but don't overmix.
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Spread the mix evenly over the three cake pans (approx. 500 g each) and bake for 35-40 mins. Take them out and let the cool upside down on a cooling rack.
Frosting
- Mix with a hand mixer the butter with the cream cheese until is homogeneous - it is very important for both to have the same temperature when mixed.
- Add the melted chocolate (cooled to room temperature to avoid splitting) and continue mixing.
- On a low speed, add the powder sugar and vanilla essence and mix it until you have a smooth cream in texture and looks. If it looks a bit too soft you can leave it in the fridge for a while. Decoration
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Prep three metal bowls with different dimensions and 2 baking paper or silicon mats. Put the bowls upside down and oil them good. Melt the sugar until is amber color - be ready to take it off the stove and put it on a cooling rack because it's changing the color from gold to amber in a matter of seconds.
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Let it cool for a minute and after that put a teaspoon full of caramel on the mat/paper and smear it along. Make approximately 16 "smudges". If, in the meanwhile, the caramel got too hard to work with you can put it back on the stove to re-melt it.
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Put the walnut in a toothpick and dip it in caramel and let it coll down on a paper.
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For the nest, pour the caramel over the bottom of the bowls in all directions to make it look like a net. Let it cool completely and after you can move it a bit and it will all come out.
Making the cake
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Build the cake using the frosting and the sponges. Do not use too much of the cream in between the layers because sponges are heavy. Cover the cake in cream and let it cool for an hour or two. (optional)
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Put the three decorations made on the bowls on top of each other and place it on the top of the cake. Add the walnut in the middle.
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Place the sugar strips around the cake.
