If an Oscar was awarded to the South’s favorite cake, it just might be the banana- and pineapple-filled Hummingbird . This layered beauty with a whisper of cinnamon and enrobed in cream cheese frosting shot to stardom nearly 50 years ago.
The recipe was printed in the February 1978 issue of Southern Living and submitted by the late Eva Wiggins of Greensboro, North Carolina.
A few years ago, Southern Living’s business manager Nellah Bailey McGough was able to locate Mrs. Wiggins’ family and learn that she was born in 1914 in Wayne County, North Carolina. She was an accomplished pianist who loved to bake and travel, and she cared for others by cooking and baking for them. She died in 1995 at 81 years.
From Jamaica To Southern Fame
Mrs. Wiggins might have gotten the idea for her cake from a recipe that circulated in the late 1960s. It was a banana Bundt cake recipe printed in the Charlotte Observer and other newspapers…