Happy Birthday, dada!

On Saturday, it was DH's birthday :) The whole family was up at 0630 because minibeanie refused to return to bed after his 0500 feed (one of those). And so it was that a bleary-eyed DH came down with minibeanie to find a tray of birthday cupcakes with a lit candle approaching him.

Hummingbird cupcake with Limoncello cream cheese frosting

It was a strange name for a cake but I think the cake had southern roots and it was characterized by pecans, banana, pineapple with a hint of cinnamon. The end result was a wonderfully moist and delicious cake. And at 7 in the morning, it wasn't quite a healthy breakfast but at least we were having our fruits, nut and dairy! :D

I decided to give the traditional cream cheese frosting a touch of Limoncello, a lemon liquer from Southern Italy, since there's a bottle of it in my fridge. Besides, it would set off the citrus-y flavour in the cake. Unfortunately, the frosting had too little of the taste of Limoncello. I found myself in a situation where I'd to add a lot more icing sugar than I wanted just to keep the consistency suitable for piping. The icing sugar then masked the taste of Limoncello and also made the frosting a tad sweet. It was a catch-22 situation! After awhile, I decided to go with more cheese than sugar so I removed half the frosting from my bowl and beat in the remaining cream cheese I had. I now have a container of cream cheese frosting in my fridge waiting for me. Perhaps a carrot cake?


All in though, it was a wonderful recipe :) Thanks to chockylit!


minibeanie is 10 months, 3 weeks & 2 days old