Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Before I go any further, I know you’re looking at this cake and thinking ‘But I’m trying to diet here! Why are you posting cake in January?!’ Well, number 1: If you’re looking for diet recipes then you’re in the WRONG place. Number 2: This IS my healthy food, people! Just look at this ingredient list – it basically reads like a salad bar! Pecan nuts, smashed banana, pineapple, lime – like I said, healthy food 😉

But let me get serious for a minute (since we’re in the month of dieting and eating plans); I’ve never loved the idea of attaching any form of guilt to food, especially when it’s one of the things we need to stay alive. No matter what, each day, we all need to stop what we’re doing to fuel our bodies to survive. Like breathing and sleeping. And to feel guilty about that? To constantly want to be somebody else’s idea of perfect? To me, that’s not my idea of happiness. There is a reason we are born with tastebuds and why we get so much pleasure out of eating – because eating is one of the best parts about life and depriving yourself of that (if you’re a food-lover like me), is no way to live.

Obviously, I’m not saying you should eat cake every day – I certainly don’t! But I believe it’s all about balance (or at least trying to achieve balance), and if you want a slice of cake, if  it’s going to make a crappy day at work better or give you a moment of bliss when things are all getting too much, then I say have it. Eat the cake. I by no means have a perfect body, but I love it – every curve (or bump) is testament to my insane love of baking and if good food makes me happy then bring on the love handles because you know what? My worst nightmare is being hit by a bus and in that moment regretting swopping that decadent slice of cake for a salad. So just eat the cake. Or more specifically, eat THIS cake.

 

 

Hummingbird Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Recipe and image originally created for Food and Home Entertaining Magazine

Serves 12

 

1 cup (250ml) vegetable oil

2 large eggs

4 medium-sized very ripe bananas, mashed

1 tsp (5ml) vanilla extract

350g (1 ¾ cups) Natura Sugars Golden Caster Sugar

350g (3 cups) self-raising flour, sifted

1 tsp (5ml) ground cinnamon

1 x 425g tin crushed pineapple, drained well

50g (1/2 cup) pecans, chopped

 

FOR THE ICING

400g (3 ½ cups) Natura Sugars Demerara Icing sugar

150g unsalted butter, (at room temperature)

200g full fat cream cheese

zest and juice of 1 limes

Edible flowers, to decorate

 

Preheat the oven to 180°C (conventional). Grease and line two 23cm round cake tins. Whisk together the oil and eggs then add the bananas, vanilla and sugar. Fold in the sifted flour, cinnamon, pineapple and pecan nuts. Divide the batter between the tins and bake for 35-40 minutes or until golden and a cake tester comes out clean. Leave to cool for 10 minutes before turning the cakes out to cool completely. To make the icing, cream the icing sugar and butter until light and fluffy then whip in the cream cheese, zest and juice until just combined. Layer the cakes with the frosting then decorate with edible flowers.

Chocolate Stout Cake With Pretzel Brittle

Chocolate Stout Cake With Pretzel Brittle

It was exactly 6 years ago to the day that I hit ‘upload’ on my very first blog post. Although back then, my blog was called Katelyn’s Corner (none of my friends had yet thought of the fact that my name rhymed with cake tin!)  the very first post was, of course, sweet – cupcakes, to be exact. I was a scared, young food stylists’ assistant who craved her own creative space, I was just beginning to style my own photo’s, had never picked up a camera, didn’t have my tongue-in-cheek writing tone and most importantly, had no idea that you all would share my love for sweet, decadent, delicious things!

Since that first post, I cannot believe how far my little blog has come  – from neglecting it and going weeks without feeding it sugar, or cookies, or chocolate, to older photographs I cringe at and recipes I’ve since retested and improved upon, I never dreamed that it would win two South African Best Blog Awards back-to-back! And while it gets used to it’s pretty new design and logo (thanks Pieter Grobler!) I thought I’d celebrate The Kate Tin turning a whole 6 years old with, what else than CAKE!

For the occasion, I’ve baked a very grown-up Chocolate Stout Cake which is super delicious, moist, and is probably the antithesis to those pretty pink cupcakes I first posted back in February 2010.I want to thank all of you for reading, commenting and baking my recipes – and while The Kate Tin may not yet be of drinking age, cheers to the next 12 years of sharing deliciously over-the-top recipes with all of you!

Chocolate Stout Cake with Beer Caramel Sauce

Serves 10-12

 

250ml dark stout beer (I used Castle Chocolate Stout but you could also replace the beer with cold coffee)

250g butter, melted

80g The Kate Tin Cocoa Powder

400g Natura Sugars Dark Muscovado Sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

140ml buttermilk

280g cake flour

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp baking powder

 

Cream Cheese Frosting

50g butter, softened

300g Natura Sugars Demerara Icing Sugar

125g full-fat cream cheese

 

Caramel Beer Glaze and Pretzel Brittle

160ml Natura Sugars Golden Caster Sugar

60ml dark stout beer or water

2 tbsp honey

75g pretzels

1/2 cup cream

1 tablespoon butter

pinch of salt

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Peanut brittle or pretzel brittle*, to decorate

 

Preheat oven to 170 degrees celcius (150C if your oven is fan-forced). Line 3 x 24cm sandwich cake tins with baking paper. Whisk together the beer, butter, cocoa powder, sugar, eggs, vanilla and buttermilk and set aside. Mix together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder together then add the wet ingredients and whisk well until combined. Pour into the lined cake tins and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Allow to cool slightly then remove from the tin and cool completely.

For the frosting, in a stand mixer whip the butter, icing sugar and cream cheese until light and fluffy.

To make the sauce and brittle, spread the pretzels out on a lined baking tray. Place the sugar, beer and honey in a saucepan and simmer until the syrup reaches hard ball stage (when a little syrup is dropped into a cup of water, it immediately turns brittle.) Pour half the syrup over the pretzels, then use the rest to make the sauce by adding the cream and butter. Stir until smooth then add the salt and vanilla. Allow to cool, adding a little water to thin out if necessary.

Assemble the cake by layering the cakes alternately with the frosting then drizzling with the caramel sauce. Decorate with the crushed up brittle.

 

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I never bake for myself. If I bake, it’s for a reason; to spoil a friend, to share with colleagues or to (hopefully) inspire someone on this page to create something delicious to share with their friends or families – like a ripple effect of baking love! So when I discovered that this year’s theme for World Baking Day on Sunday 18 May is #PledgetoBake for someone special, I decided to do what I usually do and bake with love, but this time, it’s for the person who inspired my love for sweetness and baking, the sweetest person I know – my mom (who, by the way, is probably the only person who can take down a tin of condensed milk faster than I can – I know, hard to believe isn’t it?!).
 
It was a mini baking set I received for Christmas at 6 years old that sparked my passion for whipping and whisking but it actually began way before that, with me poking my nose over the kitchen counter and watching my mom and grandmother baking up all sorts of delights. My mother would bake fresh bread each morning and churn butter from the cream skimmed off the top of the milk that came from our cows on the farm. Homemade strawberry jam was also a regular thing in our kitchen. Despite insisting she isn’t a talented baker, we still got the most beautiful, creative birthday cakes each year, made in the dead of night. Wishing wells, Humpty Dumpty’s and Garden walls crawling with sweetie insects were the cakes I could only dream of. But didn’t have to.

So when I started hosting my own cooking shows in our family kitchen, with every single ingredient neatly measured out in a gazillion little prep bowls (a la Delia Smith-style), my mom never complained about the mountain of washing up (despite it driving her nuts inside!). The older I got, the more challenging the recipes I attempted became. I never stuck to the simple stuff; having once seen spun sugar in a food magazine, I attempted to make it myself, only to leave my mother chiseling molten sugar off her kitchen floor and walls for weeks afterwards! Yet still, she was always encouraging of my dream.

 Mom, this recipe and post is for you. You’ve always supported and encouraged me; from your kind words after little flops on national television to sending me countless recipes from your cookbooks and the many, many dishes you’ve washed during my endless photoshoots. But most of all, it’s a little thank you for the passion and love you gave me for food.  These pretty red velvets remind me of my mom. Graceful and elegant; I’ve always thought of the red velvet cupcake as the lady of all the cupcakes. It’s bright and cheerful and sweet as can be. But who will you be baking for on World Baking Day, which by the way, is this Sunday (18 May 2014)? Let me know in the comments below and also, WHAT you’ll be baking for them!  Don’t forget to make your pledge official here – it puts your #pledgetobake into a cute little card that you can share on social media and also allows you to tag the lucky person you’re baking for so that the world knows how awesome they are!  Happy World Baking Day!

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Recipe by Stork Bake

Makes 12

 

180g Stork Bake

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp salt

400g (2 1/2 cups) cake flour

315g (1 1/2 cups) castor sugar

Red food colouring (I used the gel variety)

2 tbsp The Kate Tin Cocoa Powder

250 ml (1 cup) buttermilk or natural yoghurt

3 tsp baking powder

 

Frosting

55g Stork Bake

300g Icing sugar, sifted

125g smooth full fat cream cheese

 

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake cases. Cream the Stork Bake and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.  In a separate bowl, combine the cocoa, food colouring and 2 tbsp water then beat into the mixture.  Combine the flour, baking powder and salt and add into the mixture gradually, alternating with the buttermilk and beating on a low speed.  Spoon the batter into the cupcake cases, filling them 3/4 full.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until springy to the touch, or a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool on a cake rack, before frosting.  For the frosting, cream the Stork Bake until light and fluffy then add the icing sugar and beat well. Once very light and fluffy, add the cream cheese.