Hummingbird cake
225g butter, softened
11/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
440g can crushed pineapple, well drained
1 cup walnuts or pecans, finely chopped
Icing
250g cream cheese, softened
75g butter, softened
3 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla essence
400g can mango slices, drained and sliced
3/4 cup thread coconut, lightly toasted
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Spray 2 x 20cm round cake pans with oil and line bases with baking paper.
2. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well. Fold in the bananas.
3. Sift in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add the pineapple and walnuts. Fold together gently until combined.
4. Spoon the cake mixture evenly into the prepared pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.
5. To make the icing, beat the cream cheese and butter until combined. Mix in the icing sugar and vanilla.
6. To assemble, spread icing over one of the cooled cakes and then cover with mango slices. Spread a little more icing on the second cake and sit on top of the mango, icing side down. Cover the cake with remaining icing and sprinkle with toasted coconut.
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