Kardea Brown Gives Hummingbird Cake The Cookie Treatment In Her Take On The Old School Dessert

Unless you've spent much time in the Southern United States, you may not be overly familiar with hummingbird cake. While it's by no means a forgotten nostalgic cake, it is a dessert with strong regional ties and a fascinating history dating back to the 1960s, when the Jamaican Tourist Board started promoting it (among other recipes and attractions) in efforts to boost the island's tourist trade. In 1978, "Southern Living" shared a recipe for hummingbird cake; ever since, it's been closely associated with the Southern U.S. as well.

Although you may not have guessed it based on the name, hummingbird cake features tropical flavors like banana, pineapple, and spices. Nowadays, the cake is commonly made in layers, with cream cheese frosting, toasted or candied pecans, and occasionally coconut as well. But if you're not feeling up to decorating a layer cake, Southern cook Kardea Brown has a creative take on the bake, turning it into an indulgent layered bar cookie.

Brown's recipe starts with a shortbread crust flavored with cinnamon. This is topped with a cream cheese mixture with a mashed banana blended into it. Brown then sprinkles the unbaked cream cheese layer with crushed pineapple (drained), dried pineapple rings, and coconut. Oh, and don't forget the drizzle of melted butter to keep everything nice and moist! Once the confection has baked, she adds chopped, candied pecans.

Kardea Brown's hummingbird bars recipe uses her two favorite kitchen appliances: a food processor for the shortbread crust and an electric mixer for the cream cheese filling. If you don't have a food processor, there are plenty of shortbread crust recipes that don't require one. While some of these recipes may have you use melted butter, Brown's recipe requires solid butter cut into pieces, and instructs the baker to pulse the crust ingredients until crumbly. So for her version, if you need a food processor substitute, simply cut in the butter with a pastry cutter after mixing the remaining ingredients.

Beyond the shortbread crust, another unique aspect of Brown's recipe is that she drains the crushed pineapple before adding it on top of the cream cheese mixture. In a typical hummingbird cake, you often don't drain the pineapple, as that extra juice just adds additional moisture and flavor. Furthermore, she boosts that tropical pineapple flavor with the addition of dried pineapple rings — which, she notes, also provide another interesting texture, alongside the crunchy pecans, creamy filling, and buttery crust.

If you've never had hummingbird cake, we definitely recommend tracking down a slice of this iconic dessert. But we also appreciate Kardea Brown's fresh and texturally complex take on a classic.