Hummingbird Cake. A Family Tradition

I can't remember a time when Homecoming wasn't part of life at our country church. It's still held every year on the second Sunday in June, just as it was when I was growing up.

We could always count on certain Homecoming traditions.

People who had moved away came back. Families gathered. Graves in the cemetery were decorated with flowers, just as they had been for generations. There was always a guest preacher and singers. And lots of congregational singing.

In my earliest memories, some called the meal after church "dinner on the ground," but my family called it Homecoming. Long tables made of rough wooden planks, weathered by years of sun and rain, stood next to tall oak trees. They weren't fancy tables. They didn't need to be. As families brought their food, the platters, bowls, and baskets covered the rough planks.

As the years passed and a new church was built, dinner moved inside to the Fellowship Hall. The location of the meal changed, but not much else. The people came back. The graves were decorated. There was preaching and singing. And always more food than we could possibly eat.

By Homecoming 1978, I was married and seven months pregnant with our first baby. I was certainly thankful that dinner was served inside the Fellowship Hall.

The tables were full of fried chicken, garden vegetables, potato salad, homemade breads, cakes, pies, and banana pudding. And there were jugs of Southern sweet tea. Lots of it. Everyone seemed to have something they were known for bringing. Am I making you hungry for some country cookin’?

My mama always brought her chicken and cornbread dressing with giblet gravy. Southern-style dressing made from cornbread, not a package of stuffing mix. Some dishes simply belonged at Homecoming, and Mama's cornbread dressing was one of them.

But that year, Mama had something new to add to the table.

A few months earlier Mama found a cake recipe she wanted to try. She liked trying new recipes, so finding one in Southern Living that caught her attention wasn't unusual.

She made the cake for our family Easter dinner, and we loved it. But when anyone asked for the recipe, Mama wasn't quite ready to share it. She had plans for that cake. She would make it for Homecoming.

It was called Hummingbird Cake.

The recipe, submitted by Mrs. L. H. Wiggins of Greensboro, North Carolina, was published in the February 1978 issue of Southern Living in an article called “Making the Most of Bananas.”

Made with bananas, crushed pineapple, and pecans, then covered with cream cheese frosting and sprinkled with chopped pecans, it looked similar to her Carrot Cake, but the flavor was uniquely different.

We don't know much about the history of Hummingbird Cake. Recipes for similar cakes predate 1978, including one known as Doctor Bird Cake (from Jamaica). But for the sake of the Southern girl I am, I'm hanging on to Hummingbird Cake.

By the time Homecoming arrived, Hummingbird Cake was no longer new to our family. Mama had found a keeper. Now it had a place on the Homecoming table alongside all those cakes and pies made from recipes families had shared for years.

I don't remember who cut the first slice or who was the first to ask Mama for the recipe. I don't even remember whether there was a crumb left when the day was over. Nearly fifty years have passed, and some of those little details I don't remember.

What I do remember is that Hummingbird Cake didn't disappear when Homecoming was over. Mama made it again. And again.

Somewhere along the way, the cake that had been the new recipe in the February issue of Southern Living became one of our family favorites.

And now, nearly fifty years later, I'm standing in my kitchen baking a Hummingbird Cake from the same recipe Mama discovered in 1978. I measure the flour and sugar, chop the bananas and pecans, add the crushed pineapple, and make that familiar cream cheese frosting. As I stir the ingredients, I'm thinking of Mama and Homecoming.

Somewhere along the way, I even published the recipe in my cookbook, Harvest. A recipe Mama kept secret until after Homecoming became one I wanted to make sure was passed along.

Same recipe. Different generation.

Mama couldn't have known when she tried that new recipe for Easter in 1978 that we would still be baking it all these years later. She probably wasn't thinking about family traditions at all. She had simply found a cake she wanted to try.

If I know my daughter like I think I do, this recipe isn't going anywhere. And one day, my granddaughters will stand in their kitchens with flour on the counter and pecans waiting to be chopped, making the same cake their great-grandmother first made all those years ago.

Maybe that's how traditions begin. Someone decides to try something new, and before we know it, we're passing it along to the next generation.

So perhaps it's time to bake a Hummingbird Cake for your family. Who knows? You may be starting a tradition without even knowing it.

And if you want to be a little different, you can call it Doctor Bird Cake. As for this Southern girl, I'm sticking with Hummingbird Cake.

It's a keeper.

Hummingbird Cake 1978

Cake

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1½ cups salad oil
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 (8-ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained
• 2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts, divided
• 2 cups chopped bananas
• Cream Cheese Frosting (Recipe follows)

Directions

Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans.

Combine the flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl.

Add the beaten eggs and oil. Stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Do not beat the batter. This is important to the old recipe and to get that tender texture this cake is known for.

Stir in the vanilla, undrained crushed pineapple, 1 cup of the chopped pecans, and the chopped bananas.

Divide the batter among the three prepared pans.

Bake at 350°F for 25–30 minutes.

Remove the layers from the pans and cool completely before frosting.

Spread Cream Cheese Frosting between the layers and over the top and sides. Finish by sprinkling the remaining 1 cup of chopped pecans over the cake.

And I could not resist the decorative pecans in a star shape to finish off the look of the cake. After all, that's what my mama always did!

Original Cream Cheese Frosting

• 2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 2 (16-ounce) packages powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Note: My mama always cut this frosting recipe in half. It makes too much!

Cream the softened cream cheese and butter until smooth. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar until light and fluffy, then stir in the vanilla. This makes enough frosting for the three-layer cake.