Lamar Lovelace’s Recipe featured in Dance Magazine

Lamar Lovelace is something of a contradiction: an avid home baker who doesn’t much like sweets. “I call myself a ‘baking philanthropist,’ ” says the Step Afrika! executive director. “I bake and give it away to my neighbors. There’s a line outside my house of people driving up with containers.” His hummingbird cake, which he calls “the cool cousin of the carrot cake,” is always a big hit. Lovelace developed the recipe based on one of his favorite food memories: a slice of hummingbird cake he shared with his mom many years ago at a Chicago restaurant called Table Fifty-Two.

Lovelace is always looking for his next baking challenge. He recently mastered an opera cake entremet for an online French pastry class and has reworked his grandmother’s pound cake recipe so thoroughly that his mom has declared it even better than the original. Baking is Lovelace’s chance to unwind from work, but it requires a similar attention to detail. “Recipes are about components and ingredients, and my work is about people and relationships,” he explains. “But they’re similar in thinking about how these things mix together to get the desired result.”

Pineapple “Flowers”

To re-create Lovelace’s pineapple flower decorations, slice the skin off a whole ripe pineapple and thinly slice the fruit into rounds, keeping the core. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 225°F for an hour or more, until dried and lightly caramelized. Drape the rounds over the cups of an overturned muffin tin and let them cool to set their form.

Ingredients

For the Cake

• 3/4 cup (170 g) salted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup (180 g) avocado oil
• 1 cup (200 g) dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (85 g) granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp rum or rum extract
• 1/4 tsp butter extract (“It gives it a bakery quality,” says Lovelace.)
• 2–3 very ripe bananas (about 400 g), mashed
• 1 cup (226 g) canned crushed pineapple, well drained
• 3 cups (375 g) all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon (Lovelace prefers Vietnamese cinnamon: “It’s a more pronounced taste.”)
• 1/8 tsp ground cardamom
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup (120 g) pecans, toasted and chopped

For the Frosting

• 1 1/2 cups (339 g) salted butter, softened
• 8 oz (226 g) cream cheese
• 6 cups (about 700 g) powdered sugar
• 1 tsp rum or rum extract
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

For Garnishing

• toasted pecans
• whole pineapple, if making pineapple flowers (See instructions above.)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease three 8-inch cake pans with butter and line with parchment rounds.
2. In a stand mixer, beat the butter, oil, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until smooth and slightly lighter in texture, about 2–3 minutes.
3. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Stir in the vanilla, rum, and butter extract.
4. Mix in the mashed banana and drained pineapple. The batter will look thick and a little uneven at this stage.
5. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt. Gently fold the dry ingredients into the batter, just until no streaks of flour remain. Be careful not to overmix—the batter should remain thick. Fold in the pecans.
6. Divide the batter evenly among the pans and bake for 25–30 minutes, or until the tops are set and a toothpick comes out with a few moist crumbs.
7. Let the cakes cool in the pans for about 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a rack to cool completely. (Lovelace suggests chilling the layers before assembling the cake to make them easier to work with.)
8. Make the frosting: In a stand mixer, beat the butter until smooth and slightly lightened, then add the cream cheese and mix until fully combined. Gradually add the powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Stir in the rum and cinnamon. If the frosting feels too soft, chill it briefly, then mix again before using.
9. Place one cake layer on a plate and spread the frosting evenly over the top. Repeat with the remaining layers, then frost the outside of the cake. Decorate with toasted pecans and pineapple flowers.