Hummingbird Cake... well, cupcakes

Sometimes, Marlene and I talk about what we want to write in our blog posts about specific things we're baking while baking them. Sometimes, Marlene and I don't see each other for two weeks and have a lot of gossip to catch up on and we can't post about that. But, anyways, we made delicious hummingbird cake cupcakes. Like, the chocolate chip cookie cups, these are pretty nostalgic for us. I gotta say, in our group of friends from high school this might be the most highly requested dessert.

My mom used to make hummingbird cake for us in high school and it quickly became a favorite dessert. So, when we baked these, our friend Isabella came over to watch, talk, and eat some. Then, I promptly took a batch to my childhood best friend, Becca. Lastly, Marlene and I ate soooo many of these mini cupcakes and even turned messed up ones into banana pudding.

If you couldn't tell by our previous posts, Marlene and I are into small bite sized desserts that pack a punch and these do the trick. Shout out to my mom and Southern Living for giving us the inspiration to make these hummingbird cupcakes!

INGREDIENTS. Here's what you need to make Hummingbird cupcakes:

cake:

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups vegetable oil

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 (8-oz) can crushed pineapple in juice, undrained

2 cups chopped ripe bananas

1 cup chopped pecans

cream cheese frosting:

1 8 oz package cream cheese

1/2 cup butter

1 package of powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

RECIPE. Here's how you make hummingbird cupcakes:

Preheat your oven to 350F. line mini muffin tins with baking liners.

In a stand mixer, beat together flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Then add eggs and oil. Gently beat in pineapple, bananas and pecans. DO NOT OVER BEAT .

You'll want to divide these among your pans, however, you'll definitely do this in batches because we counted a total of NINETY mini cupcakes.

Bake these for about 15-20 minutes. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN. On the first batch I opened the oven too much and they turned out terribly (stay tuned for more on this).

Once these are cooling, prepare the cream cheese frosting. beat cream cheese and butter together until smooth then add powdered sugar, SLOWLY. Add the vanilla then beat til fluffy. This recipe doubles easily, however, we didn't need that much frosting.

To assemble these mini cupcakes, top each cupcake with a generous amount of frosting and a sprinkle of extra pecans.

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Okay, so, like I said before, I definitely opened the oven too many times and messed up the first batch of these, they were cooked but soggy and sticky on top. We didn't want to use them for pictures but we didn't want to throw them away. So, Marlene had the brilliant beyond brilliant idea of crumbling these up into a banana pudding style treat. So, here's an extra recipe for you and it is SO simple.

Here's what you'll need for hummingbird cake banana pudding:

1 box of nilla wafers

24 poorly baked hummingbird cupcakes

8 oz of cool whip

1 pack of vanilla pudding

1/2 can of condensed milk

Here's how to make it:

Mix condensed milk with the pack of vanilla pudding. On the bottom of an 8x8 pan lay down nilla wafers to cover, then add a layer or pudding, then a layer of mushy cupcakes, and then a layer of cool whip, repeat (we had two layers). Top the pudding with extra, crushed, nilla wafers and any leftover cream cheese frosting.

If you haven't figured it out by now, Marlene and I are the queens of turning bad baking into something delicious. And both of these recipes were so, so good. Try either or both of these recipes and let us know what you think over on our instagram @maddieandmarlymake!