A Tropical Hummingbird Cake with fresh pineapple, macadamia nuts, coconut and banana to celebrate Wheatsville Co-ops 44th Birthday on March 16th
This month, Wheatsville Co-op is celebrating its 44th birthday and in celebration for the big event, I partnered with them to create this Tropical Hummingbird Cake and give away a $50 gift card to Wheatsville Co-Op to one lucky reader.
Wheatsville Co-op has been an Austin staple for 44 years, officially celebrating their birthday on March 16th. They have two locations in Austin, once centrally located on Guadalupe near campus (the original), and another in South Austin on South Lamar. They’re a full-service natural grocery store and if you haven’t tried some of their ridiculously delicious donuts or $5 dinner plates, you’re greatly missing out!
Wheatsville Co-op is also huge in supporting the Austin community. Throughout the year, they partner with a different local non-profit organization each month and donate $1,000 at the end of the organization’s assigned month to the non-profit. For March, Wheatsville is partnering with Austin Parks Foundation. Shoppers also have the ability to ’round-up’ their purchase total to donate to the month’s local non-profit group.
Not Familiar with the Co-op Model?
Wheatsville’s co-op model means that community members invest in Wheatsville becoming members/owners. Wheatsville’s overall purpose is to serve its owners rather than generate a profit.
And when it does generate a profit, it ‘is cycled back into Wheatsville to increase services for the owners, or if sufficient profit is made, it is given back to the owners in the form of a Patronage Rebate.‘
Anyone is welcome to become an owner of Wheatsville and all shoppers are welcome, not just owners but being an owner does come with some perks:
- Co-op Owner Deals: extra savings for co-op owners
- Owner Coupons
- Owner Perks
- Patronage Rebates: a share of the co-ops profits during sufficiently profitable years
- University Federal Credit Union Eligibility to join the credit union
- Vote in the Wheatsville Election for
- the Board of Directors,
- Community Action Recipients, and
- bylaws revisions and owner petitions
Learn more about Wheatsville Co-op model here.
Celebrating Wheatsville Co-op
When I thought about Wheatsville Co-op and their Spring birthday celebration, I was inspired to make something that was fresh, bright, and colorful. Hummingbird Cake has always been a favorite cake of mine but to give it a little spin, and make something special for Wheatsville, I chose to give this classic recipe a tropical makeover.
Traditional Hummingbird Cake has pecans, banana, and pineapple frosted with a cream cheese frosting (see my traditional Hummingbird cupcake recipe here). To bring in tropical flavors, my cake
- used macadamia nuts in place of pecans
- fresh pineapple rather than the traditional canned pineapple
- coconut oil for an extra tropical treat
- toasted unsweetened coconut
Texture you can see from the macadamia nuts and pieces of fresh fruit
The result was a sweet, thick cake full of fruity flavors and texture from the macadamia nut pieces and pieces of fruit. The cake appeared in texture to be a close cousin to banana bread, which IMO is just plain delicious.
Keeping with the fresh and light theme of a Spring birthday, rather than frost the cake in traditional cream cheese frosting, I whipped up a silky, light Swiss meringue buttercream. The buttercream, paired with the thicker Tropical Hummingbird Cake was a perfect match by not adding too much sweetness to the already fruit-forward cake.
To decorate the cake, I wanted a slightly feminine look for Wheatsville’s Spring birthday and chose to tint the Swiss meringue buttercream a light violet color for its base and decorate the cake with wrapped buttercream piped stars in different hues of purple, complimenting Wheatsville Co-ops own purple branding.
Recreate Wheatsville Co-ops Tropical Hummingbird Cake yourself with the recipe below.
Giveaway
In honor of Wheatsville Co-ops 44th birthday on March 16th, you have an opportunity to win a $50 gift card to shop the store! Head on over to my Instagram page and
- Follow me @hermodernkitchen and @wheatsville
- Like the Wheatsville birthday cake photo posted on my feed
- Tag a friend who would love Wheatsville!
- 1½ cups chopped macadamia nuts, toasted*
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon all-spice
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup mashed banana, about 2 medium ripe bananas
- 1 cup fresh pineapple, crushed**
- 3 large eggs at room temperature
- ⅔ cup coconut oil, melted
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- ¾ cup coconut sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted*
- 12 cups Swiss meringue buttercream, colored to your liking
- Preheat oven to 350F
- Grease three 8-inch cake pans and dust with flour. Line bottoms with parchment then set aside.
- Place all dry ingredients (nuts through salt) into a medium bowl and whisk together to combine.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the bananas, pineapple, eggs, melted coconut oil, both sugars, and vanilla extract.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Fold in the toasted coconut.
- Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans. (I used a kitchen scale to ensure the batter is evenly distributed.)
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, rotating the pans in the oven halfway through. Bake until a cake tester comes out clean.
- Cool 10 minutes in the pans then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before stacking and frosting.
- Assemble the cake by placing 1 cake layer on your cake stand, topping it with ~3/4 cup Swiss meringue buttercream. Repeat with the remaining two layers. Frost the outside of the cake and decorate as desired with additional tinted buttercream using piping tips. Serve immediately and refrigerate any extra servings for up to 3-days.
**To 'crush' your pineapple, place about 1½ cups of fresh pineapple chunks into your food processor, and pulse 6-8 times. Ensure there aren't any big chunks of pineapple and do not process too long or you'll make pineapple puree.
