Hummingbird Cake from The Girl Who Chased the Moon

Some of you might know this, some might not. But Sarah Addison Allen has written three books. All of her books contain magic and food. Sometimes together.

Anywho, my Sister-in-Law and I made one of the cakes that she mentioned in her new book The Girl Who Chased the Moon for Easter Sunday.

Hummingbird Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1 can (8oz) crushed pineapple, well drained
1 cup chopped pecans
2 cups chopped firm ripe banana

Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking soda and cinnamon together. Add eggs and oil to the dry ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon until ingredients are moistened. Stir in vanilla, pineapple and pecans. Stir in the bananas last. Spoon the batter into three greased and floured 9-inch round cake pans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in 350 degree oven, or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn onto cooling rack. Cool completely before frosting with cream cheese frosting.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

1 pound cream cheese, softened
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a standing mixer, mix the cream cheese, sugar, and butter on low speed until ingredients combine. Increase the speed to high, and mix until light and fluffy. Reduce the speed of the mixer to low. Add the vanilla, raise the speed to high and mix.

Alternatives

We changed a few things in the recipe. Instead of:

• 2 cups of Sugar in the batter. We used 1.5 cups of Agave Nectar. (Even though Agave is a low glycemic index sugar we used it more for personal preference.
  
• 1 1/4 cup Vegetable Oil. We used 1 1/4 cup Applesauce (I just had an issue with that much oil.)
  
• 4 cups of powdered sugar for the frosting. We cut it and did 3 cups powdered sugar to 1 cup powdered milk. (This was to cut the sweetness of the frosting.)
  

I really liked the cake! It was very, very good. I was a bit surprised that it's a three layer cake. And it was really dense. Or maybe our version was since we swapped out ingredients. If anyone else makes it, I'd love to hear if your's was dense or not.

I unfortunately was out of it when we were making this and forgot to take a completed pic. But it was very pretty and very tasty!

Here's a little Easter Egg for all of you for my Giveaway. If you have any great ideas for recipe alternatives. Like the ones I mentioned above, you'll get an extra entry in my giveaway for each that you post here.