Hummingbird Cupcakes

Today seemed to be the perfect day to try the Hummingbird Cake recipe from "The Charleston Cake Lady" cookbook.  I'd found that little cookbook in the thrift store a few years ago and I bought it because I knew that at some point, we'd be traveling to Charleston.  And we did.... last summer.... it's a beautiful city, with vintage Victorian homes on all of the downtown streets.

I had everything in the house that I needed for the cake recipe, except I didn't use cake pans..... I baked cupcakes. Perfect little size for a delicious cake recipe, and you're not tempted to keep cutting slices and slices of a full-sized cake because you can freeze un-frosted cupcakes and when they've come to room temperature, they taste as if you'd just baked them. All you have to do then is add the frosting and put the kettle on for tea.

So into the oven went my Hummingbird Cupcakes.... I used less of the chopped banana than the recipe called for and substituted chopped strawberries. When friends J&J brought me a slice of their Hummingbird Cake a couple of weeks ago, the fruit in that cake recipe was bananas, strawberries and pineapple.... so delicious. The Internet is filled with recipes for this cake..... but the must-haves seem to be the bananas, pineapple, strawberries, and pecans..... and cream-cheese frosting.

I don't often make a cake from scratch..... I use Duncan Hines cake mixes and tweak them a bit... but with the Hummingbird Cake, all of the recipes I found were from-scratch recipes. Lots of stirring (couldn't use the Kitchen-Aid because the flour was flying out of the mixing bowl...... so be prepared to mix and mix and mix by hand...... but the end result is the most luscious cake. (Definitely use the Kitchen-Aid for the cream-cheese frosting, though... it comes out very fluffy and light.)

The recipe made a lot of cupcakes, so most of them are in the freezer now.... and I've got a bowl of the frosting in the fridge, ready to spread on the cupcakes as they're defrosted.  I kept telling my husband how good this cake was, and I don't think he believed me........ when I told him that the recipe called for chopped bananas, he said that it must taste like banana bread--- which it doesn't.  When I frosted the little cupcakes with that cream-cheese icing this afternoon, he realized that I wasn't exaggerating about that cake.

Still don't know why they call this Hummingbird Cake........ the colors of the cake are so pretty, with the strawberries, bananas, pineapple, and dots of pecan pieces throughout the cake, so that could be the reason. And it's a sweet-tasting, summer-y cake... I'm sure the hummingbirds would approve, but I don't intend to put a cupcake out by the bird feeder.