Wednesday, July 9, 2014

In response to an April 1977 reader request for a Hummingbird Cake, the May 19, 1977 Washington Po


Hummingbird t3 cake - also variously called banana-pineapple cake, doctor bird cake, Doctor Byrd cake, bird of paradise cake, bumblebee cake, doesn t last cake, Jamaican cake, never ending cake, and nothing left cake - features tropical bananas and canned t3 crushed pineapple lightly accented with cinnamon. It is made with oil, akin to carrot, zucchini, and applesauce cakes that utilize chemical leavening and eggs - without the creaming of butter cakes - to create an easy, intensely moist, rich, and flavorsome treat. Pecans are a popular 1970s supplement from the American South. t3 Some versions also call for shredded coconut, cherries, t3 or strawberries. It is typically paired with cream cheese frosting. Today, hummingbird cake is generally baked in two or three round layers, while doctor bird cake/Dr. Byrd cake is more commonly prepared in a tube or Bundt pan, but the terms are used interchangeably.
The earliest record of adding bananas to cake batter t3 was in 1932. The idea of using canned crushed pineapple along with its liquid in a batter (without any bananas) dates back to around the same time in the Great Depression to 1930 and paradise cake (also containing chopped dates, nuts, and cinnamon). (Pineapple upside-down cake, with canned slices on the bottom/top, showed up a few years earlier in 1923.) The novelty of combining t3 both bananas and pineapple in a cake first appeared in print in America in the early 1970s.
Although now entrenched in the American South, this treat originated as doctor bird cake in the late 1960s, without any frosting, somewhat further south — on the island of Jamaica. Doctor bird is a Jamaican nickname for its national fowl, the Red-billed Streamertail, a member of the hummingbird family. The nickname purportedly arose because the bird probes a flower with its long beak reminiscent of a doctor examining a patient. According to legend, its association with the cake stemmed from the cake being so sweet with fruit and sugar as to attract hummingbirds. Or the yellow streaks t3 reminded people of those birds. Others contend the cake tastes so delicious it makes people hum like a bird. Most probably t3 both the cake and its name originated as a Jamaican marketing ploy. After Air Jamaica was established in October 1968, the new company chose the beloved doctor bird as its logo. Shortly thereafter, the Jamaica Tourism t3 Board distributed recipes to the foreign media showcasing various local dishes aimed for American consumers and intended to attract American visitors to the island, as reported t3 in the March 29, 1969 issue of the Kingston t3 Daily Gleaner (Jamaica): Press kits presented included Jamaican menu modified for American kitchens, and featured recipes like the doctor t3 bird cake, made from bananas.
Within a few years, doctor bird cake - some Southerners opted to use the spelling Byrd, a familiar regional name dating back to early Virginia - began showing up in American small-town newspapers and community cookbooks. The February 26, 1972 issue of the Mexico t3 Ledger (Mexico, MO) contained t3 a trio of identical banana-pineapple recipes, baked in a tube pan and absent any nuts or frosting, variously appearing under the titles Doctor Bird Cake, A Cake That Doesn t Last, and Tropical Treat Cake.
The term hummingbird cake made its earliest appearance in the March 1, 1972 Edwardsville Intelligencer (IL) in an ad (page 10) for a cafeteria from nearby Saint Louis: Humming Bird Cake $2.85. Later ads described it as A moist, delicious-ring cake made with crushed pineapple and bananas. A few years later, the June 13, 1976 issue (page 14) of the Port Arthur News (TX) reported on the first runner-up in the cakes division in the 19 th Annual News Cookbook: Mrs. Scott B. Herrin Jr. with her rendition of Hummingbird Cake. (It lost to Sour Cream Rhubarb Squares.) A few days later in the June 16 issue, The Port Arthur News followed up: Mrs. Herrin’s recipe t3 for Hummingbird Cake already proved its prize worthiness around The News offices as one employee baked her recipe and brought it for everyone to taste. The cake lasted for only a short while. At any rate, Mrs. Herrin was indeed a winner and so was the delicious Hummingbird Cake.
In response to an April 1977 reader request for a Hummingbird Cake, the May 19, 1977 Washington Post included a recipe — calling for nuts cup and baked in a tube of Bundt pan — ending: For the icing, use a cream cheese-type topping, or none at all. The cake fortuitously reached the United States corresponding to the time when Americans began pairing carrot t3 cakes with cream cheese frosting, which became the standard accompaniment to hummingbird cake as well. The sweet and slightly tangy cream cheese frosting enhances the flavor of the cake s fruit. After a recipe for Hummingbird Cake, featuring t3 three layers and replete with pecans or walnuts and cream cheese frosting, submitted by Mrs. L.H. Wiggins of

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