Here's my recipe:
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla powder
sift them all together. The original recipe also has 1 teaspoon cinnamon in it. But I'm not that big of fan so I just forgot it. Honestly.
Add 3 previously beaten eggs and 11/4 cups of vegetable oil. Stir.
Next:
Add 1 small can of crushed pineapples, drained
2 small or 1 big apple, chopped finely
4 chopped bananas (or 31/2 if your dog is also sitting beside you with pleading eyes. Mine loves bananas)
~1 cup some kind of chopped nuts or almonds. I had almonds at home but originally you are supposed to use the pecans.
Stir everything well together and spoon into 2 28 cm round cake pans. If you have only one pan this size you can bake them in the row too.
Bake in 180 degree C oven for 25-35 minutes until a wooden pick comes out clean when you poke it into the cake. Cool in pans for 10 minutes then take out onto a cooling rack.
The filling
This time I tried the custard cream filling. Tastes quite good. But I guess in the future I will try other possibilites too. Condensated milk comes to mind... Lemon cream... We'll see :)
Combine 200 ml coffee cream (10%) with 100 ml milk and cook over medium heat until bubbles are emerging around the edge of the pan.
Add 100 ml sugar and 1/4 teaspoons of salt and stir until fully dissolved.
Remove from the heat.
Separately combine 100 ml milk with 6 teaspoons of corn starch or potato starch. Whisk vigorously so that there remain no lumps. Whisk in 3 eggs.
Add the hot mixture into it in a thin stream, whisking all the time.
Return the mixture to the pan, bring to a boil and cook over low heat, constantly stirring until the cream thickens.
It takes about 6 minutes.
Remove from the stove and let cool.
When the cakes and the filling are both cooled down you spread the cream between the layers. I cut one layer in two horizontally, because they were quite uneven :) So I had 3 layers and I divided the custard between them.
On the top I melted some dark chockolate with coffee cream on low heat and spread it evenly. I also added some caramel sauce in nice swirls.
Now I had to name the cake... After all it's not the hummingbird cake anymore. Had to choose another bird. So, all the time I was baking there were several great tits peeking into my windows. Apparently they have good memory - we fed them during the last winter and although it yet not so cold outside they decided to warm up the relationship I guess. I'm not envious so I put a bird-feeding grease-seeds-ball outside and what's more - I decided to dedicate the cake to them.
So... enjoy the Great Tit Cake!
