HummingBird Bread

Earlier this year my husband and I spent the week in Atlantic Beach, NC. We went to this restaurant called The Channel Marker (twice in fact) during our trip. If you ever go there be SURE to order the Hummingbird Cake for dessert! Apparently Hummingbird cake is a popular dish in the south, however before this trip I had never heard of such a thing. This cake is reminiscent of a carrot cake but instead calls for bananas and pineapple - but at the Channel Marker they also added coconut.  Topped off with cream cheese icing - and it was to die for!

This recipe was modified from one I found HERE I was in the mood for Carrot cake, but felt like giving this one a whirl as well. So I also added carrot and coconut. 

So here was the problem. I baked this bread/cake at night, and let it cool overnight. By the next morning I had developed a pretty quick moving cold and unfortunately couldn't even taste this cake. I'm assuming that by how quickly the hubby devoured it - that is wasn't that terrible...especially given that he doesn't like carrot cake. 

I made the glaze according to the directions in the link above, and I should have known by the word "glaze" but I didn't like how liquid this glaze stayed. I was hoping it would harden at some point but never did. Of course by then, it was too late to add more sugar and thicken it up. Nonetheless I heard it tasted pretty good. I'd like to make this cake again, but I think I'll use a different recipe next time - I'm still looking to replicate the one at the Channel Marker - does anyone know their baker? Hook a sister up!

Cake Pops Take 1

The very first time I had a cake pop was about a year ago. This lovely girl I play Derby with, made some, and handed them out at practice one night as a way to promote her cake pop side business - pure genius! Before this moment I had never even heard of cake pops let alone eaten one. It was amazing! To this day it is still the best cake pop I have ever had.

I had to find out how to make them. The following week I began googling recipes for cake pops. If you do this you'll come up with a huge variety of recipes. Since I just wanted to see if this was something I could even conquer, I decided to pick the easiest recipe I could find. It went like this:

1 box of cake mix (any brand)
1/2-1 can of ready to use Icing (any brand)

Choose complementary flavors. For example: Chocolate cake + Chocolate Icing or Carrot cake + Cream Cheese Icing.

In fact Veronica's Cornucpoia was the blog I stumbled upon with the best directions and where I learned how to make cake pops. Thank you Veronica!!!

I made my first few standing up in styrofoam like Veronica suggests, but found it quite difficult. After about 10 (failed) attempts, I decided I'd lay my pops on a baking pan lined with a sheet of parchment. This ended up being the best decision ever. It also makes it much easier when it comes to decorating! Plus, you can always hide the ugly (flat) side by serving the pops in a mini cupcake liner.

Below are images of my second round of cake pops, I made these over 4th of July weekend as we had quite a few parties to go to, and I could bring them with us where ever we went - needless to say, they were a big hit...

Vanilla Cake (dyed pink), Vanilla Icing coated with Vanilla Candy coating:

Carrot Cake, Cream Cheese Icing with Vanilla Candy coating (White & Orange):

Vanilla Cake with Chocolate Candy coating:

Like I said, these cake pops were a huge hit. I think I made everyone I knew have some that weekend. But after spending what turned into DAYS making these, I give my friend a ton of credit starting a cake pop business. It is a ton of effort. Something I don't plan on doing myself, that's for sure. But every once in awhile, when I have some time to kill...Instead of knitting (my usual go-to hobby), I like to make little desserts that look just as good as they taste.