Reading Inspired Baking :)

To anyone who read my last blog post, it is no secret just how much I loved Rebel Belle by Rachel Hawkins. While reading it however, there is a passage where the main character Harper Price is baking a hummingbird cake to give as a gift, and I was instantly intrigued.

It happens to me quite often while reading books, that I am suddenly inspired to try making what they are having for dinner, breakfast, lunch or dessert, as it always sounds so yummy. This is often a frequent occurrence after reading Debbie Macomber's books, particularly her Cedar Cove series, and after reading The Mother Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, I quickly decided that baked macaroni and cheese needed to be on the menu for dinner.

However, hummingbird cake was something I was completely unfamiliar with. I had no idea what this particular kind of cake even consisted of, and so I was off on a recipe hunt to find out what exactly this amazing sounding cake was.

I researched several amazing sounding recipes, and decided to go with one from www.simplyrecipes.com as it sounded delicious.(Full recipe link below)  Since I knew there was no way that my hubby and I could ever finish a three layer cake with just the two of us, I decided to take it to mom's house as dessert for her thanksgiving dinner. It was met by absolutely rave reviews, and it didn't take long for it to completely disappear.

I'm curious to know if anyone else is ever inspired in their kitchen by what they are currently reading :)

Here was my process for making this cake.

This is NOT my recipe, all credit goes to the amazing Elise from Simply Recipes.

Hummingbird Cake Ingredients:

3 Cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking power
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I actually omitted this as I am not a fan)
3 eggs
2 cups granulated white sugar
1 cup canola oil
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 8 ounce can crushed pineapple with juice
2 cups mashed bananas, from about 3 or 4 bananas
1 cup finely chopped pecans.

Cream Cheese Frosting:
1lb cream cheese, softened. (I only used one eight ounce package)
1 cup butter, softened. (I only used half a cup)
2 pounds confectioner's sugar (I only used one pound)
1 tablespoon Cointreau (I also omitted this)
1 cup roughly chopped pecans
edible flowers (I did not use these either).

I started by gathering all my ingredients.

Then I whisked together all the dry ingredients, and placed wax paper in three round nine inch cake pans. The recipe just said to flour them, but I generally use the wax paper method as I personally find it works better for me.

Then I whisked up the oil, sugar and eggs.

And added the mashed bananas and pineapple.

Then I mixed the wet ingredients into the dry, and prepared the cake batter

I unfortunately got distracted at this point and didn't get a picture of the batter going in to the pans. But this is how amazing the cakes looked coming out of the oven.

And this was the amazing final product. My decorating left a little to be desired, but this recipe was amazing! I highly recommend checking out the full recipe here : http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/hummingbird_cake/

This is not a sponsored post. Everything used in this baking process was purchased by me with my own money. I am also not affiliated with the blog promoted in this post. I am simply a huge fan of the site, and encourage everyone to check it out.

Thanks for reading, and I will see everyone in my next post.