Hummingbird Cake via BreeLinne.com

Cost is so relative. Have you ever experienced this?

You spend an hour debating between the $.99 calendar app and the $2.99 calendar app. Because are those bells and whistles realllllly worth that extra $2? I mean, all it’s doing is keeping your entire LIFE organized. Then you go and buy a $100 pair of shoes for a special occasion, which more than likely means you will only wear them once.

Now, I will tell you I haven’t bought a hundred dollar pair of shoes since middle school, when I HAD to have those new Air Jordans. I was a brat for a few years. But I do the same thing with other purchases. Like bedding. I’ll buy a $50 duvet, which gets occasional use, but then put myself on an under-$10 budget for my pillows, which support my head and neck and basically determine the difference between a good and bad night’s sleep. What is wrong with me?

This cake was a byproduct of this phenomena. I will buy vanilla beans by the pound, with no certainty that I will use them before they go bad. But when our $.59/lb bananas begin to brown, I begin a frantic race to figure out something to make with them before they turn black.

This has happened three times in the past month, and I had yet to find something worth making before now. Banana bread or muffins would have been the obvious choice, but I just wasn’t feeling it. And I found several  beautiful banana icebox pie recipes in my recipe binder, but WHO has cool whip lying around?

The stress of keeping those bananas from the trash was consuming me.

Finally, I remembered this classic. Saved by pineapples and cream cheese icing!

Southern Living’s Famous Hummingbird Cake
print recipe

INGREDIENTS:

for cake

1 1/2 c pecans, chopped
3 c all purpose flour
2 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs, beaten
1 3/4 c mashed banana (approx. 3-4 large bananas)
8 oz crushed pineapple w/ juice
3/4 c canola oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

for cream cheese icing

4 oz cream cheese, softened
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1-2 Tbs milk

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350. Toast your pecans by baking them in a single layer on a cookie sheet for 8 minutes. Remove and let cool.

In a large bowl, stir together the dry ingredients (flour through salt), then add in the eggs, banana, pineapple, oil, and vanilla. Stir just until combined. Grease a large bundt pan, and sprinkle 1 cup of the pecans in the bottom. Pour the batter over and bake for 1 hour. Remove cake from oven and place the pan on a cooling rack. After a few minutes, turn pan over and cake should loosen an fall out. Leave on cooling rack for another hour or so.

Meanwhile, prepare the cream cheese icing by mixing all ingredients in a food processor or blender (I used my mini chopper.) Pour over the cooled cake, and sprinkle the top with remaining pecans.

If you weren’t able to tell, I forgot the pecans on top until the very end.

Recipe adapted from and with thanks to: Southern Living