Hummingbird Cupcakes

 

In my ongoing experiment cooking Southern food that I have never actually eaten, hummingbird cake always sounded appealing.  Pineapple, coconut and banana.  Most have nuts added (which I don’t like to cook with, too many little kids too allergic), but this recipe from Annie’s Eats (who in turn, took it from Martha Stewart)  has it as an option only.  Looked perfect to me.

There were problems, of course. I had the pineapple (big frozen bag from Trader Joe’s), but came up short on the bananas (about 1 less than the 1 1/3 cp required) and my coconut was looking a little sad. But there was that big jar of coconut oil I had just purchased. Threw in 2 tablespoons or so (and then left everything to drain. I always drain and press fruit for my recipes well, it's hard to control the additional liquid).

Made everything else according to the recipe, with only a FEW tweaks:

1  Room temperature. Lots of recipes call for room temperature butter. I am going to tell you to get your eggs room temperature too. Better rise. Let them sit out a little, or put them in a glass of lukewarm water. Don't use them icy from the fridge. 

2.  You can beat your eggs and butter and sugar into Kitchen Aid oblivion, but once you add flour the party is over.  Flour + liquid + force = chewy.  Which is great for bread, but lousy for anything sweet.  And I don't trust the mixer anymore on low because my phone rings, or something explodes, and then...it's gone.

 

 

There, that's the color.  Decent rise.  Could have gotten a higher yield if I had that extra banana, but no matter....

We have frosting to make.

Here's that room temperature thing again.  I cut things into little pieces and leave them out.  They get to the right temp pretty quick.  DO NOT microwave anything, DO NOT let it get melty in the sun.  I can't tell you why that doesn't work, but it certainly does not work. You will have lumps of confectioner's sugar in an oily pool.

The website recipe seems fine for cream cheese frosting.  I've made frosting so many times, I just eyeball it.  One block CC, one stick butter, tsp vanilla, about a 1 lb of powdered sugar -- beat that until it's frosting and add a tbsp of milk at a time until it's pipeable.

Since this cake is so fruity, I thought I'd add a little extra something to the frosting....

 

If you are lucky enough to live near a Middle Eastern food importer, get right over there and you pick up marvelous things like this for a couple bucks.  This is orange blossom water, pomegranate molasses, orange oil and rose water.  I decided to go with the orange water.  I mean, you can go to Williams Sonoma but they will charge you $50 and be total jerks about the whole thing. 

 

 

 

And here we are. I liked the cake very much, the pineapple really came through and tastes springy and fresh. Didn't really taste the coconut oil but I will assume that made up for the moistness of our missing banana. I think the next time I will sub out half the white sugar for Demarra Cane sugar (again, at Williams Sonoma for $50 or your local Guyanese grocer for $4, who is waiting for you with open arms) and increase the cinammon to 1 tsp.