Hummingbird cupcakes

IF you really don't care about sugar overload, you might like to try this recipe for hummingbird cupcakes by wonderful Capetonian foodie Nina Timm, author of Easy Cooking from Nina's Kitchen.

The recipe is not in the book, as she has just recently devised it.

The cake has been an American tradition in its Southern cuisine and Timm describes it as "like carrot cakes, without the carrots".

"It has the same baking method as a carrot cake, the same frosting, the same consistency ... just the carrots are missing, which may actually please some people. People like me, who love carrots, except in carrot cake."

It makes 12.

INGREDIENTS:

375 ml cake flour

5ml baking soda or bicarbonate of soda

5ml salt

250 ml sugar

5ml cinnamon

2 large eggs – lightly beaten

125ml vegetable oil

125ml crushed pineapple – drained

125ml chopped pecan nuts

250ml mashed bananas

For the frosting:

250ml cream cheese

100ml butter

300g icing sugar

5ml vanilla extract

METHOD:

Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC and spray your cupcake pans with Spray 'n Cook. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt, sugar and cinnamon.

Add the eggs and oil and mix until all the dry ingredients are moist. Add the vanilla, pineapple, banana and chopped pecan nuts.

Spoon the batter into the cupcake molds (about 3/4 full).

Bake for about 15–20 minutes or until the cupcakes are firm to the touch. Remove from the pans and cool on a rack.

To make the frosting: Take one-quarter of the butter and put in a pan and melt. Keep your eye on the butter and allow it to caramelise to a lovely golden colour. Place the remaining butter and cream cheese in your blender and whisk until light and creamy. Gradually add the icing sugar one spoon at a time until the icing is done. Add the vanilla.

Once the cupcakes have cooled down, pipe the icing on and lastly add the salted caramel pecans.

To make the salted caramel pecans: Take 250ml pecan and scatter them on a sheet of silicon paper.

Pour 250ml sugar into a non-stick pan and slowly heat so that the sugar turns into a golden caramel colour without burning.

Do not stir or take your eye off the pan. Once the sugar is golden, pour over the pecans so that every nut is covered in the caramel. Sprinkle some coarse sea salt over the top and allow to harden. Use as decoration on cupcakes.

• Easy Cooking from Nina's Kitchen, available in Afrikaans as Maklike Etes uit Nina Se Kombuis, is published by Penguin/Randomhouse