Triple-layered with cream cheese frosting, hummingbird cake contains mashed bananas, crushed pineapple, and chopped pecans. It rarely is found outside the South; a recipe with this name first was published by Southern Living magazine in 1978. Although one would assume that the cake was named simply because it is sweet enough for a hummingbird to love, culinary genealogists trace it back to the Doctor Bird, a swallow-tailed hummingbird that lives only in Jamaica and a banana cake from there that was its inspiration.
Fruity and well-frosted, hummingbird cake has Jamaican roots and is now a Dixie favorite.