Hummingbird cake: a bake from America's Deep South

I’d always assumed that the hummingbird’s cake derived its name from its unapologetic sweetness: a cake so singing with fruit juice and soft caramelly sugar that it charms the (humming)birds from the trees. The origins may in fact be more prosaic: originally called the Doctor Bird cake, it was named after the national symbol of Jamaica, a type of hummingbird, only found on the island, and it first came to fame outside of Jamaica thanks to a bit of a PR stunt. It was a marketing tool, really: one of a number of recipes exported by the Jamaican Tourist Board in 1968 in little press packs sent to the USA. But the cake itself and choice of name must have come from somewhere before the Jamaicans sent the banana-pineapple cake to the yanks, so I like to imagine that its nectar-sweetness had a part to play.

I’m not sure how successful the mail-out was in terms of promoting Jamaican-US relations, but it was pretty effective in endearing the cake to the Americans. It has enjoyed particular popularity in the Southern states, states which share Jamaica’s taste for all things sweet and a generous scattering of pecans. The first recorded American recipe was in 1978 in Southern Living magazine (a Deep South cooking institution); since then it has become its most requested ever recipe.

I’m a really big fan of this cake. If I’m making a cake for a friend, and they give me free reign, it’s likely they’re going to get a hummingbird cake, and it has become the de facto birthday cake in our household. Packed full of smushed ripe bananas and crushed pineapple, it is dense and moist, lightly spiced with cinnamon and stuffed with handfuls of chopped pecans. Thanks to the use of oil rather than butter, virtually no elbow grease is needed (always a bonus in my book): the ingredients are simply stirred together, then baked before – traditionally – being topped with cool, soft cream cheese icing.