Hummingbird cake

• By Claire Borg

You will need:

Two very ripe bananas, 560g of canned pineapple (drained), 60ml of syrup from the can, 50g of desiccated coconut, 200g of brown sugar, 225g of plain flour, two eggs, 1 ½ teaspoonfuls of baking powder, 180ml of olive oil, half a teaspoonful each of bicarbonate of soda, ground cinnamon and ground ginger.

For the topping: 200g of cream cheese, two drops of vanilla essence or a scraping from a vanilla pod, two tablespoonfuls of icing sugar (sieved), some toasted shredded coconut, some crystallised borage flowers.

Sieve the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, ginger and sugar into a large bowl. Add the desiccated coconut and mix it all together. Mash the pineapple with a fork, then place it in a fine sieve and press it down well to remove as much liquid as possible. Discard this liquid and keep the pineapple mash. In another bowl, mash the bananas, add the eggs, oil, pineapple syrup and pineapple mash. Mix this thoroughly. Pour this mixture into the flour mixture, and gently fold it in using a large spoon. Pour it into a non-stick 20cm-diameter cake-tin and cook it in for 45 minutes in an oven that has been preheated to 180C. Remove the cake from the oven immediately it is done, and leave it to cool slightly before turning it out of the tin onto a wire rack to cool completely. Then frost it. To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese with an electric whisk for about five minutes. Add the vanilla and icing sugar and beat it all together until it is well combined. Using a palette knife, spread this over the cake. Decorate it with the toasted coconut and the crystallised borage flowers.