Gluten-Free Hummingbird Cake
This is the Gluten-Free Hummingbird Cake you have been looking for. Bursting with bananas, fresh pineapple and pecans and lightly spiced with cinnamon. Filled and covered in a gloriously dreamy cream cheese buttercream. Here we make it with your favourite gluten-free flours for maximum flavour and perfect texture.
Prep Time30 minutes mins
Cook Time20 minutes mins
Total Time50 minutes mins
Course: Cake
Cuisine: American
Servings: 16 people
Calories: 880kcal
- 300 g bananas about (3-4), mashed
- 300 ml olive oil mild and light
- 200 g soft light brown sugar
- 100 g caster sugar
- 3 eggs medium
- 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 120 g sweet rice flour
- 100 g oat flour
- 80 g almond flour
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground allspice
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 75 g pecans roughly chopped + 25g decoration
- 1 fresh pineapple diced
- 25 g dried banana chips for decoration
Cream Cheese Buttercream
- 525 g unsalted butter
- 600 g icing sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 375 g cream cheese
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan assisted oven/gas 4 and line and grease three 8 inch x 4 inch round cake tins.
Beat the bananas with the olive oil, sugars, eggs and vanilla extract in large bowl or standing mixer until thoroughly combined.
Whisk the flours together in a separate bowl with the bicarbonate of soda, spices and salt.
Fold the flour into the wet ingredients one third at a time.
Stir in 275g of the diced pineapple and pecans until evenly dispersed.
Divide the batter between the three baking tins and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Cream Cheese Buttercream
Cream the butter and icing sugar and mix for about 10 minutes until very light and fluffy.
Add the salt and vanilla and mix again to combine.
Finally add the cream cheese and mix until just combined.
Assembly
Place one of the cake layers on a cake board or cake stand.
Fill a piping bag with the buttercream. Pipe concentric circles around the top of the cake layer. Use a small spatula to smooth so it creates an even layer of buttercream.
Place the second layer of cake on top of the buttercream then add another layer of buttercream.
Finally place the third cake layer on top and add a final layer of buttercream.
Pipe the rest of the buttercream around the sides of the cake and use a spatula to smooth.
Pipe buttercream, using a piping tip of your choice, around the top of the cake.
Decorate with dried banana, the extra pineapple (see notes below on how to dry it out) and extra pecans.
- Use ripe bananas – you want them to mash well into the batter and ripe bananas have a deeper flavour.
- Olive oil – make sure you use flavourless mild and light olive oil.
- Vanilla extract – use extract not essence for the right flavour.
- Oat flour – you can substitute for sorghum flour if you are intolerant to oats.
- Almond flour – if you can’t get hold of it you can use finely ground almonds.
- Pineapple – you can use tinned if you can’t get hold of fresh pineapple.
- Leftover pineapple – use it to decorate the cake. To avoid the juice seeping over the top dry it out in the oven. Place the diced pineapple on a lined baking tray and baked for a couple of hours in an oven set to 100°C/80°C fan assisted oven/gas ½.
- Storage – cream cheese buttercream doesn’t keep well out of the fridge so as soon as the cake is decorated then store in the fridge for up to 3 days.
- Freeze – this cake freezes really well for up to 2 months. If you are freezing leftover cake then I like to cut into slices to freeze.
Calories: 880kcal | Carbohydrates: 82g | Protein: 6g | Fat: 61g | Saturated Fat: 25g | Cholesterol: 127mg | Sodium: 384mg | Potassium: 253mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 65g | Vitamin A: 1224IU | Vitamin C: 29mg | Calcium: 73mg | Iron: 1mg