By Carrie Vasios Mullins From Serious Eats

When I bake on the weekend, it’s often as a way to relax. Yes, believe it or not, I find making a twenty-step, multi-rise, or multi-layer dessert shenanigan to be relaxing. Well, with one big caveat: it’s relaxing when I’m not making the dish for anyone in particular. If I’m just baking to bake, then I’ll take on any project and make it into zen “me time.” Add the element of strangers (or ok, even some friends) eating my food, and that relaxation all goes to hell.

That’s why I often turn to low fuss dessert recipes for dinner parties. The last thing I need is to turn something I normally enjoy into a stressful experience, and thus rustic and simple is the name of the game. This Hummingbird pudding cake is a great example. It’s made in just one bowl and its presentation—that old bake sale classic, the 9-inch square pan —immediately signals “this isn’t a fancy dessert so…whatever.”

But the flavors are there: it’s moist, thanks to pineapple and banana in the crumb, crunchy, thanks to pecans, and features my favorite frosting of all time: tangy cream cheese.

This classic southern cake is full of pineapple, banana, and pecans and iced with a creamy cream cheese frosting. This snack cake version is easy mixed in just one bowl and oh so moist.

Notes: Make sure to use a ripe banana. Choose one that is deep yellow with some brown speckling.

About the Author: Yvonne Ruperti is a food writer, recipe developer, former bakery owner, and author of the new cookbook One Bowl Baking: Simple From Scratch Recipes for Delicious Desserts (Running Press, October 2013), and available at Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Powell’s, The Book Depository. Watch her culinary stylings on the America’s Test Kitchen television show. Follow her Chocoholic, Chicken Dinners, Singapore Stories and Let Them Eat Cake columns on Serious Eats. Follow Yvonne on Twitter as she explores Singapore.

HUMMINGBIRD PUDDING CAKE RECIPE

About This Recipe

YIELD:

makes one 9-inch square cake

ACTIVE TIME:

15 minutes

TOTAL TIME:

3 hours

SPECIAL EQUIPMENT:

9- by 9-inch nonstick pan

THIS RECIPE APPEARS IN:

Weekend Baking Project: Hummingbird Pudding Cake

One Bowl Baking: Hummingbird Pudding Cake

RATED:

Ingredients

For Cake

2 large eggs

1 cup (7 ounces) firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 large ripe banana, mashed (about 1/2 cup)

1/2 cup canola oil

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 (14 1/2-ounce) can crushed pineapple in syrup

1 1/4 cup (6 1/4 ounces) all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2/3 cup pecan halves, chopped, plus extra for garnish

For Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup (1 1/3 ounces) plus 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar

1 tablespoon dark rum (or milk)

Procedures

1

For Cake:Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease 9- by- 9-inch baking pan. Whisk eggs, sugar, salt, and banana in a large bowl until completely combined. Whisk in pineapple (with liquid) until combined.

 

2

Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and chopped pecans to the bowl, and then whisk until completely combined. Pour into prepared pan and bake until top is set and toothpick inserted into the center comes out mostly clean with a few moist crumbs, 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer pan to wire rack to cool completely, about 2 hours. Wash bowl.

 

3

For Cream Cheese Frosting: In the same bowl (washed), stir cream cheese and sugar until combined. Whisk briefly until smooth. Gently whisk in rum (or milk). Spread over cooled cake and top with reserved pecan halves.

[Photograph: Yvonne Ruperti]

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