Annabel Crabb's Hummingbird-ish Cake

In a recent issue of The Australian Women's Weekly, they had a cooking section promoting Annabel Crabb's book, Special Delivery.  Annabel hosts a series on ABC TV called Kitchen Cabinet, where she goes into the homes of politicians and cooks with them while having a chat about their lives.

One of the recipes published from Annabel's book in the Weekly was her Hummingbird-ish Cake.  This is a really delicious cake, as you can see from an inside shot:

As well as the usual pineapple, the cake contains peaches and pumpkin seeds, which are novel additions to a Hummingbird Cake.

This cake went down a treat with the troops, and if you like this sort of cake, it is a good one to make.

To make this cake, you will need:

235g tin of peaches, drained

100g tinned pineapple, drained

250g plain flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

200g sugar

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

200ml vegetable oil

2 mashed ripe bananas

50g dried apricots, chopped

100g mixed seeds (sunflower and pumpkin seeds)

Icing

300g cream cheese, softened

70g butter, softened

150g icing sugar

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease and line 3 x 20cm round cake tins.

In a bowl, roughly chop the peaches and pineapple.

In a separate large bowl, sift together the flour, spices, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder.

To the flour mixture, add the peach and pineapple mixture, eggs, oil and bananas. Fold together with a rubber spatula until just combined.

Fold the dried apricots and seeds through the batter.

Divide the batter evenly between the three prepared cake tins, and smooth the tops with a spatula.

Bake the cakes for 15 minutes or until cooked through.  Leave the cakes to cool in their tins on a wire rack.

To make the icing, mix all of the ingredients together until smooth.  Spread a layer of icing on top of one cake, top with the next cake, and repeat twice more. Decorate with edible flowers, if desired.