Gluten-free reduced sugar mini Hummingbird cakes

This recipe has been supplied by Cake & Co - a new bakery and coffee shop in Ponsonby, Auckland. Here more than half of the baked goodies are geared towards those with special dietary requests whether it's dairy, gluten or egg-free. This recipe for Hummingbird cakes is gluten-free and has a reduced quantity of sugar. Recipe makes 12 standard cupcakes or 36 mini cakes.

Ingredients

220 g	Golden caster sugar, (from Ceres or Huckleberry Farms) or use standard caster sugar
3	Eggs, at room temperature
300 ml	Vegetable oil
3	Bananas, ripe, peeled and mashed (Main)
1 tsp	Pure vanilla extract
1 tsp	Ground cinnamon
280 g	Spelt flour, or gluten-free flour mix (Main)
1 tsp	Baking soda
½ tsp	Salt
120 g	Canned pineapple pieces, crushed in juice, drained (Main)
70 g	Hazelnuts, toasted, skinned and roughly chopped, plus extra to decorate
70 g	Walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

Ingredients

350 g	Icing sugar, sifted, I make my own golden icing sugar by grinding unrefined golden sugar
50 g	Butter, at room temperature
125 g	Cream cheese, cold

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 170C. Grease mini muffin tins.
2. Put the sugar, eggs, oil, banana, vanilla and cinnamon in a mixer with a paddle attachment (or you can use a hand mixer) and beat until all the ingredients are well incorporated. Don't worry if the mixture looks slightly split.
3. Slowly add the flour, baking soda and salt and continue to beat until everything is well mixed.
4. By hand, carefully stir in the crushed pineapple and chopped hazelnuts and walnuts (or use one kind of nut) until evenly mixed.
5. Using a teaspoon, fill each greased (silicon tins are great for these) mini muffin hole till three quarters full and bake for 20 minutes.
6. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then gently tip out on to a wire cooling rack.
7. When cool, fill a piping bag (fit with a #20 round tip, or cut a 1cm hole at the tip of your bag) with frosting and pipe a round blob onto each mini cake and top with a whole hazelnut, half a walnut or a piece of Sweet As freeze-dried pineapple.

Cream cheese frosting

1. Beat the icing sugar and butter together on medium speed until the mixture comes together and starts to clump.
2. Add the cream cheese and beat until it is completely incorporated. Turn the mixer speed up and continue beating until the frosting is light and fluffy. Take care not to overbeat, as it can quickly become runny.

Tips

If you prefer a large layer cake, divide the mixture and bake in two 6” tins for 55 minutes. Insert a skewer into the middle of the cake to check it is cooked.