A Slightly Healthier Birthday Cake

My husband's birthday is actually this coming Friday, but since we had friends visiting, we celebrated it this past Sunday. Hubby's been having some pretty severe health issues of late, and we have been on a healthier eating regimen. My health is not perfect either, so we can both benefit by eating better things. I am not using anything that comes in boxes or jars. Only some few canned goods, and only if they are no-salt. Instead, we are eating lots and lots of vegetables, some of them ones my husband had never eaten, or never eaten willingly. Red meat is in far smaller portions, fish has been added in, and many new and delicious lentils are all part of our new eating plan. Salt is far less, sugar is exceedingly spare. Mainly I use a teaspoon of maple syrup or honey if something needs that little bit of sweetness.

Healthier Hummingbird Cake

That also means we are not really eating anything dessert-like, except for fresh fruit. And so when we discussed what he would like for his birthday, he was adamant about wanting a cake, with icing. I hated having to introduce that much sugar and white flour into our diet again, so I started perusing the internet for healthier ways to make a cake. But when it came to the icing part - I just couldn't see any real way to accomplish it without an awful lot of sugar and butter.

The Cake

When I started looking for "healthier" cake recipes, I wasn't sure what I hoped to find. And then I came upon a recipe for Hummingbird Cake. I had never heard of Hummingbird Cake, even though I am old enough to have. It turns out that in fact, it is quite similar to my carrot cake; just substitute over-ripe bananas for the carrots in my carrot cake and the rest is really darned close. As I just looked for my carrot cake recipe, to create a link, I realize that somehow, I have never put my carrot cake recipe out here, neither on my website, nor on my blog! I have now remedied this!

For now though, I will say that my carrot cake has carrots (obviously), pineapple, coconut and nuts. The hummingbird cake is just as variable as carrot cakes, because I have seen recipes for carrot cake that have carrots, but none of the other three ingredients. And there are some that call for nuts and carrots, or pineapple and carrots, etc. It seems to be just the same with the Hummingbird Cake recipes. Some have all four ingredients (bananas, pineapple, coconut, nuts) and some have only one or two of the ingredients. I chose to go the route of all four ingredients, since all those ingredients, in and of themselves, are healthy enough ingredients.

The hard part was then trying to see how to cut back on fats, white flour, eggs, and such. After Googling 'Healthier Cake Recipes,' is when Hummingbird Cake came up, and as I read through at least 6 or 7 versions of "healthier" Hummingbird Cake, I picked and chose and came up with what felt to me the best options. It was for his birthday, after all, so flavor and texture were important. Size was far less important. I did not want a lot of cake left setting around tempting us for the next week, so I made a very small cake in two 7-inch cake pans.

I opted to use applesauce instead of some of the oil, and used coconut oil for the oil I would be using. I substituted coconut palm sugar for cane sugar. It is still sugar, I grant that. But at least it is a different source. Instead of all white all-purpose flour I substituted ⅔ whole grain Kamut flour. I used just one egg.

And guess what? It was one really delicious cake!

Healthier Hummingbird Cake

Serves about 6

Healthier Hummingbird Cake
with Chocolate Sweet Potato Icing

1 cup Kamut® Khorasan whole grain flour
½ cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup coconut palm sugar
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
⅓ cup chopped pecans
⅓ cup unsweetened coconut
1 egg
¼ cup unsweetened applesauce
3 tablespoons coconut oil, melted
¾ cup + 2 tablespoons mashed banana (about 3 bananas)
½ cup crushed pineapple, undrained
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°. Spray two 7-inch cake pans with cooking spray, line the bottoms of the pans with parchment, then spray the parchment. Set the pans aside.

In a mixing bowl, combine the first 9 dry ingredients and stir to distribute evenly. In another mixing bowl, mix together the egg, applesauce, coconut oil and banana, stirring vigorously to combine. Stir in the pineapple and vanilla and then add in the bowl of dry ingredients, stirring until no dry ingredients remain. Divide evenly between the cake pans and rap the pans sharply on the counter to settle and release trapped air bubbles. Bake the cakes in the center rack of the oven for about 20 to 22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with no more than a crumb or two. 

Let the cakes cool for 10 minutes before turning out to a rack to cool. OR, if making ahead, allow the cakes to cool completely in the pans, then cover tightly with foil or cling film, place the pans into zip-top bags and freeze for up to three weeks. Thaw thoroughly before frosting and decorating. 

The Frosting

Healthier Hummingbird Cake
with Chocolate Sweet Potato Icing

When it came to frosting that could remotely be termed healthy, I had very little hope of something my husband, or our visiting friends would accept as "frosting." I made a test run of some paleo frosting (find the recipe here) that used soaked cashews and coconut cream as its base, with some honey and other things added for sweetness and flavor. While it is absolutely scrumptious, flavor-wise, it was just far too soft to use effectively as a frosting on a stacked cake, plus it needed to stay refrigerated to hold even the little body it had, and I had no room in the fridge for a cake!

Neither my husband nor I are terribly keen on chocolate desserts or frostings, though occasionally I have made brownies. So the next frosting recipe I found was chocolate, and I almost completely dismissed it out of hand. But then I read that it contained sweet potato, so I thought I would read further. This recipe comes straight from the site where I found it (originally from "Better Baking" by Genevieve Ko), on Food 52. I changed nothing, because there are only 2 ingredients. TWO. What?!?! Well, actually I did change one aspect. The recipe (find it here, along with a chocolate zucchini cake recipe) calls for a 15 ounce can of pureed sweet potato and 10 ounces of chocolate. The "recipe" calls for heating the sweet potato puree, removing the puree from the heat and adding in the chopped semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, stirring until the chocolate dissolves, just as for ganache. It makes the prettiest, ganache ever, and I could not detect any flavor of sweet potato, though I love them.

The only thing I did differently was to bake some sweet potatoes in the oven until very soft, removing the skins (then weighing out the 15 ounces worth) and placing them in the food processor to make a fine puree (instead of using a can). Once pureed, I added in the 10 ounces of chopped semi-sweet chocolate and processed briefly, stopping to stir often until totally melted and combined. It needs to come to room temperature before using. 

Had I used the icing right away, it would have been best, because that is when the consistency was completely glossy and ganache-like. But, I was still in the testing mode, wanting to first see how it came out, whether it would be thick enough to use on a stacked cake and of course, would it pass the taste-test!

The Aftermath

We have a great friend (my husband's best friend from school days) who is a confirmed chocoholic. He is also a confirmed dessert-aholic, and does not easily abide anything that might smack of "healthy." Of course, he also exercises fanatically in order to keep off any weight gain due to his excesses. When our friend arrived for a visit, it was just as I finished stirring together this sweet potato icing. I took a bit on a spoon and popped it into his mouth before even greeting him properly, and his first reaction was all I could have hoped for! He loved it. I asked if it was suitable icing for a birthday cake and he said "Absolutely! Positively!" I figured with that kind of endorsement, it was safe to use. 

So we celebrated my husband's 69th birthday a little early and had a most wonderful time. The cake and the icing were amazing together.  If the icing was just a little too stiff when I frosted the cake, it didn't matter. And it was well worth the little effort it took to make. Our friend's significant other brought along a Malmsey Madeira, something I'd never tried before. It said to serve with dessert, so we opened it to try with the cake. It was an amazingly delicious pairing. All was well with the world!


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.