I think we all had enough banana bread during lockdown to last us a lifetime!

So what else can you do with your overripe bananas? Try this absolutely delicious Hummingbird cake. You can just make a couple of loaves (which make a great lunchbox addition), or bake the cake with all the bells and whistles! It is the weekend after all.

Here’s what goes in

• 3 cups of flour
• 1 ½ cups of sugar
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon (5 ml) of salt
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup of vegetable oil
• 1 can (400 g) of crushed pineapple, not drained
• 1 cup of nuts, chopped
• 6 bananas, mashed
• 1 ½ teaspoons of vanilla essence

For the Cream Cheese Icing:

• 250g firm cream cheese
• 250g butter, softened
• 3 cups of icing sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

How to do it

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Grease and line 3 round cakes tins of about 23cm each. In a large bowl, sift the flour, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and salt together. Add the eggs and oil and stir until well combined. Stir in the pineapple and juice, the nuts of your choice, bananas and vanilla essence. Spoon the batter evenly into the cake pans, and then bake for 25-30 minutes.

Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, and then turn them out onto racks to cool completely.

In the meantime, make the cream cheese icing. Combine the butter and cream cheese in a mixing bowl until you have a smooth, soft consistency. Gradually add the icing sugar bit by bit, mixing as you go. Once all the icing sugar is blended in, you can add the vanilla essence and stir, making sure to scrape the sides of the bowl to get everything well combined. Add more icing sugar as desired, to get a stiffer consistency.

Ice each layer of cake and stack them before icing all around with large gentle swirls.