Southern Hummingbird Cake with Tupelo Honey Cream Cheese Frosting

//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js

Do you have a favorite cake? Funny enough, I associate a specific cake with each of my siblings. My sister, Tara, is without a doubt “Pineapple Upside Down Cake.” It’s one of her faves and I enjoy making them for her when I can. My twin bro, Ty, is Coconut Cake. We grew up with a sweet little Southern neighbor named AnnieBelle, who adored Ty so much that she made him a Coconut Cake all for himself. I’m not sure if he likes it as an adult, but there’s nothing he can do to change my mind that Coconut Cake = Ty. And my biggest bro, Stephen, is Baked Alaska. It’s a long time running joke that he would, of course, request one of the most difficult desserts to make from his wife on his birthday. Poor Dawna.

So what cake am I? I don’t know…I’ll have to ask them what they think. Samantha thinks I am “Carrot Cake.” And I do love it. But for my birthday I decided to make a Southern cake staple, the Hummingbird Cake. The density and icing is totally something you would like if you are a carrot cake lover.

I’m making a few changes. First of all, no nuts for us – Both because of food of allergies and because I don’t like a crunchy cake. Secondly, I am using Tupelo honey in both the cake and the icing. My sister gifted me with a jar of my favorite Tupelo honey from the Savannah Bee Company.* Tupelo honey has a buttery flavor and it’s going to pair nicely with the bananas, pineapple, and coconut in my recipe. (Recipe at the bottom.) *This isn’t a paid advertisement. I just really like their honey.

To get started, mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

In a smaller bowl whisk the eggs and oil. I whisked the honey in at this point, too. But next time I’m going to add it at the same time as the bananas.

Time to add the bananas, pineapple, and coconut.

So rich with the yummy Tupelo honey cream cheese icing…Disclaimer: I am NOT a cake decorator. Not pretty, but oh so good!

Southern Hummingbird Cake

  • Servings: 12
  • Difficulty: medium
  • Print

A traditional southern cake recipe.


Credit: BelleAntiquarian.com

Ingredients

  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 3/4 cups of sugar
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 cups very ripe chopped bananas
  • 8 oz canned crushed pineapple, undrained
  • 1/2 cup shredded coconut
  • (optional) 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  • softened butter and flour for greasing pans

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350*
  2. Grease and flour two 9-inch baking pans
  3. Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl: flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, sugar
  4. Beat eggs and oil in a smaller bowl; add to flour and stir with a spatula.
  5. Stir in bananas, un-drained pineapple, coconut, and honey. (And nuts if you are using them.) Mix well.
  6. Pour batter into pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes. Cakes are done when a tester comes out clean.
  7. Allow cakes to cool in pans for 10 minutes and then cool completely on wire racks.
  8. Ice with honey cream cheese icing and top with toasted coconut and/or nuts.
  9. To toast coconut or pecans spread evenly on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes at 350*.
Honey Cream Cheese Frosting
  • 8 oz. softened cream cheese
  • 2 tbs. room temperature butter
  • 1/4 cup of honey
  • 1/2 tsp. vanilla
  • 3-4 cups of powered sugar
In an electric mixer beat the cream cheese, butter, honey, and vanilla until it is smooth with no clumps. While the mixer is on a slow speed, gradually add the powdered sugar until you get the consistency that you like. The more powdered sugar you add the thicker the icing will be.


Want to save this recipe for later? Use any of the “PinIt” buttons to add it to your Pinterest boards.

Abby Smolarsky1 Comment

Easter Egg Salad

//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js

What do you do with all of the dyed eggs when Easter is over? We love deviled eggs, but don’t forget about yummy egg salad! Here’s my personal recipe below. Try using different kinds of bread, too. You can get variations of flavor with rye, white, or croissants. I personally love egg salad on rye bread.

Ingredients

  • 10 hard boiled eggs
  • 1/2 cup of Kraft Miracle Whip (Mayo is BIG in the South, and if you want to use mayo, you can. But the Miracle Whip adds a pleasant tang, so I use it in my egg salad.)
  • 3/4 tbsp. of dry mustard
  • 1/4 cup sweet pickle relish
  • Salt & Pepper to taste
Get Cooking!
  • To cook the eggs place them in a cold, large saucepan. Cover with one inch (or a finger tip) of cold water. Once the water starts to boil, reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. Remove and place in an ice bath until completely cooled. 
  • Peel cooked eggs and rinse with water to remove all bits of shell. “Surprise” shell is very unpleasant!
  • Cut eggs in half; Separate the yolks from the whites.
  • Chop the whites; Smash the yolks with a fork; Combine in a large bowl.
  • Add the remaining ingredients and mix well. If you prefer more Miracle Whip, salt, or pepper–add to taste. 
  • Chill before serving.
Use this method to boil all of your eggs to avoid those weird green yolks. Eggs are one of those starchy foods, like pasta, that continue to cook even after you turn off the heat. The ice bath stops the cooking. No rubber eggs, please!
Enjoy!

//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js

Abby SmolarskyLeave a comment

Easy and Elegant Easter Place Settings

Let’s get real for a minute here: You’re probably not hosting Easter brunch for a magazine shoot. Your place settings don’t have to look like the Easter Bunny couldn’t decide what to buy, so he bought one five of everything. There are several reasons why I like to feature simple, but elegant place settings.

First, hosting friends and family for a meal doesn’t need to be unnecessarily complicated. Your guests aren’t expecting a “show.” What they really want is conversation, fellowship, contact. It’s possible to make them feel special when they sit down to eat without killing yourself to make it look that way.

Next, making a place setting look special doesn’t need to cost a fortune. As I talked about in this post HERE, I like to find basic dishes that can be used for all sorts of occasions. White works…go with it. If you buy different dishes to use for different holidays and events, the cost of hosting will take some joy out of doing it. Not to mention, you will need to find storage for all the various things. We are blessed to have an abundance of storage space; but honestly, there’s never enough space to store all of the things you have. Bottom line, invest in some nice, quality basic pieces that you can use time and time again.

Finally, sometimes less is more. I firmly believe in keeping things simple and classic. I don’t want to sit down to a meal and feel like I’m surrounded by cluttered decorations. Can we say, “Claustrophobic”? That’s not how you want your guests to feel. Hosting is all about making your guests feel comfortable and welcome. Focus on that!

With all of that said, here are some examples of simple and elegant Easter place settings.

This is in our dining room:

//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js

To see any photo larger, just click on it!

The tablecloth, place mats, and napkins are all from HomeGoods. The plates are antique German china, but I’d also be completely comfortable using my favorite white plates from World Market. The mini tulips are from Publix; we used them all throughout our Spring decor this year and you can see more of that HERE and HERE.

Here are some examples of other people’s place settings that I found on Pinterest. If you’d like to follow me on Pinterest, use the button on the top, right corner of the page.
IMG_1922

//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js

I found this on Or So She Says…. She has a great how-to. I’m not great with acrylic paint, so I’d opt for a gold or silver Sharpie marker. Look for the little nests in the floral department of Michael’s or Hobby Lobby. 
Cookie cutter bunny
This one seems so simple and FUN! I found it on All You.com. You can find M & M’s of all one color at Party City, Michael’s, or Hobby Lobby. 
Super affordable and your guests can take this one home! I found it on With a Grateful Prayer and a Thankful Heart. Use simple twine, string, or even embroidery floss to bind the sticks together. If you want to skip on the tags, you could type of the verse on some paper or card stock and cut it into strips. You could lay it with the strip or even glue the strip. Since it’s sticks, simply use Elmer’s glue. 
This one is a little different, but I love it: 

//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js

I found this on Apartment Therapy. If your local store has carrots with the green tops attached, you could totally use those, too. It reminds me of the poem by Else Holmelund Minarik:
Little seeds we sow in spring
growing while the robins sing,
give us carrots, peas and beans,
tomatoes, pumpkins, squash and greens.

And we pick them,
one and all,
through the summer, 
through the fall.

Winter comes, then spring, and then
little seeds we sow again.
Enjoy! Remember, relax and don’t make hosting a chore.
Want to see more posts about simple place settings? Go HERE. 

Abby Smolarsky5 Comments

A Twist on a Southern New Year’s Menu

//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js
I am a girl who loves tradition. Love it. And apparently y’all do, too! My previous post on the Southern New Year’s menu, along with the explanation of why we eat what we do, has been extremely popular. (thanks for that!)

And while we will be keeping to tradition this year with my New Year’s Day dinner, I will also be changing it up a bit. I’m not going to repeat my previous post with all of the symbolism, so please go HERE if you need a refresher.

With this menu I’m still going to serve greens, black eyed peas, cornbread, and pork, just with a modern twist! So fun!

The black eyed peas will be used to make a hummus. (Mmm! I love hummus!) I found a recipe (here). Since I don’t like black eyed peas, I usually only choke down (how ladylike) a few of these. So cheers to trying something new this year.

Black Eyed Pea Hummus Recipe
As for the greens, I’m going to make some kale chips. The flavor of the kale chips will go great with the hummus, but won’t necessarily be sturdy enough to be a “vehicle” for it. These are super easy to make. You can even find bags of kale at the grocery store that come with seasoning packets. But basically all you need is some olive oil, salt, and pepper. For a recipe go (here). 
For ham, I’m going to make some ham and Swiss sliders with King’s Hawaiian rolls. Can.Not.Wait. To find the recipe, click (here). The only changes I’m going to make are that I’ll be using some shredded Swiss that is already in the fridge, and since there will only be 4 of us eating, I’ll cut the recipe in half or even 1/4. 
And finally, the cornbread is actually going to be our dessert. I found a cornbread pudding recipe that looks fairly simple, and I’m going to give it a go. You can find the recipe (here).
Cornbread Pudding
My predictions are that the kids will love the sliders and the pudding, but not so much the hummus or kale chips. They are pretty good eaters, but aren’t always great at trying stuff that I make myself. (Please don’t tell them that they often have kale in their smoothies and have absolutely no idea.)
I really hope that y’all have an awesome New Year. 
P.S. If you’d like to save this page for later, please click the Pinterest button at the top or bottom of the page. 

//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js

Abby SmolarskyLeave a comment

Six Simple Fall Place Settings

//assets.pinterest.com/js/pinit.js

Y’all. It’s September. Okay, nearly October, but still. September. And here I am doing a post on place settings that would most likely be used at Thanksgiving. So much for taking things one day at a time!

Thanksgiving is on my mind today. This year Grammie and Papa John (my mom and her husband) won’t be hosting Thanksgiving as usual since they’ll be traveling. So I have volunteered to have my siblings and their families to our home for The Feast. The meal is a no brainer, and I’ve actually cooked several turkeys throughout the years. If you’re interested in seeing what we’ll most likely be eating, check out this post here.

I want to make our time together as an extended family special, but I am also currently on a fixation to simplify and keep things relaxed. Ken is in law enforcement and doesn’t get Christmas off this year, so I really want Thanksgiving to be nice. (Stressed out Abby does not make for a nice Thanksgiving for Ken.)

Am I the only person that now uses Pinterest to “google” things more than I use Google? I found six place settings on Pinterest that I know I could very easily pull off without stressing out. Despite having a borderline unhealthy passion for dishes, I’m going to keep things basic this year. All of these place settings can use everyday white or cream dishes. Of course, you could use all sorts of colors and patterns. But just to show you, you don’t have to go out and get special dishes just for Thanksgiving dinner.

Things don’t get much simpler than this! A white plate, linen napkin, small pumpkin, and a printed out tag. You could even skip the tag, and it would be lovely. Source: here.

Again, very simple. Simply take leaves from your yard and spray them with gold spray paint. I made these last year. Just a tip to flatten your leaves before you spray them. I tried to find the original source; I think this is it.
I’m crushing hard on this one. Use fresh rosemary springs and twine to make a small fragrant wreath. You can find fresh rosemary at the grocery store if you don’t have a plant. Source: here.
In the South we call these gumballs. Does everyone? You might as well use these to make something beautiful, because they sure don’t feel pretty when you step on them. Source: here.
A small piece of twine and a piece of wheat. You can find dried wheat at Michael’s. I’ve recently found it at Publix. So simple, but also so “harvest and Thanksgiving.” Love it. Source: here.
Finally, this is just as simple as the others, but it just looks so elegant. Aren’t artichokes beautiful? Source: here.

I haven’t decided which one I’ll use this year. Who knows, we may just break out the Chinet and plastic forks. Probably not, but what really matters is that we’re together, and we’re thankful.

“Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is God’s will for you in Jesus Christ.”
1 Thessalonians 5:18

Abby SmolarskyLeave a comment