Healthy hummingbird cupcakes.
I’ve never been so in love with a cupcake recipe, healthy or not.
These cupcakes are moist, sweet, and absolutely irresistible with healthy cream cheese frosting. Perhaps being in love with a cupcake sounds crazy… but just try one and I promise you will completely understand!!
Hummingbird cake, which made its culinary debut in a 1978 issue of Southern Living Magazine, is a delicate and lightly-spiced cake bursting with the sweetness of pineapple, banana, and coconut. To this day, it is still the magazine’s #1 most popular recipe of all time.
These seductive little hummingbird cupcakes perfectly capture the charm of Southern Living’s famous recipe, and they’re even healthy enough to eat for breakfast if you so choose.
Healthy Hummingbird Cupcakes
Adapted from: Healthy Blueberry Muffins
- 1/2 cup crushed pineapple, drained (120g)
- 1/2 cup mashed banana (120g)
- 2 tbsp milk of choice (30g)
- 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 2 tsp white or apple cider vinegar
- 3 tbsp vegetable or coconut oil (30g)
- 1 cup spelt or all-purpose or Bob’s gf flour (135g)
- only if using the gf flour, add 1/4 tsp xanthan gum
- 1/2 tsp plus 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/3 cup xylitol or sugar of choice (65g)
- pinch stevia or 1 extra tbsp sugar of choice
- 1/3 cup finely-chopped pecans, optional
Hummingbird Cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350 F, and line a muffin tin with 10 liners. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together first 6 ingredients. In a separate bowl, combine all remaining ingredients and stir well. Pour wet into dry, and stir until just evenly mixed. Pour into the 10 muffin tins and bake 19-20 minutes or until muffins have domed and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to sit 10 minutes before removing from the tins. Frost with either coconut butter or Healthy Cream Cheese Frosting, shredded coconut, and pecans.
Click for: Hummingbird Cupcakes Nutrition Facts
Question of the Day:
Does it feel like Spring yet where you are?
I’ve been attempting to trick myself into believing it’s Spring by baking Eastery cupcakes and carrot cake crumble. Sadly these attempts aren’t fooling anyone. Every morning, upon checking the weather forecast and seeing stars snowflakes, I’m that much closer to just dropping everything and boarding the next plane to a tropical location whose inhabitants have never heard of snow. (Seriously, how good does Fiji sound right now?)
Link of the Day: Copycat Chocolate Brownie Vitamuffins
I love that they include apple cider vinegar! Such a healthy addition!
These look so good, and I much prefer a lightened up version! The original version of hummingbird cake is delicious but SO rich.
These look so amazing!! Your recipes are so creative and yummy!
I have never heard of Hummingbird cake, but my oh my, does it sounds good! I am going to need to make these for my friend’s daughter’s third birthday in April. She is a little cupcake monster and I think these will be a hit! And Spring…not so much…forecast of snow tonight 🙁
Hi Katie, I just wanted to say how much I love your blog! I’ve had some struggles with my diet in the past and your recipes have really helped me to find a balance between over-indulging and restricting, something I had been doing for years.
I think what you’re doing is amazing and you seem like such an incredible person, keep at it!
Is it sad that I’ve never heard of Hummingbird cupcakes until I opened my email and saw this post? Maybe it’s because I’m a Midwestern chick and am not familiar with the living ways of the southern.
Here in Chicago, it keeps fooling us. One day it’s a glorious 50 degrees, the next day it’ll rain (and we all know these are the sure signs of spring), then all of the sudden, we have a forecast for snow and it’s 20 degrees out. I am currently summing up the last four days of Chicago weather, no exaggeration. Back to the comfort foods to warm me up, I guess!
Which I have no problem with whatsoever.
Fellow Midwesterner here who didn’t know what these were either … we should just focus on how happy we are to learn about these!
I think I might cry, I’ve been looking for a recipe like this for a while now! I just printed off your pineapple breakfast cake recipe and was planning to tweek it into something like this. Then you post this!? Ahhh! I’m so excited!!!! Next few days are crazy with school, but I’ll report back once I try it. Thank you!!
Or you could just come to California. I bet a lot of us foodies over here would be happy to host you and show you the best vegan eats!
These look yumness! You mentioned making a carrot cake crumble; that caught my eye!! Where’s the recipe for that? Was it ever posted?
Please advise 🙂
Marissa
Great recipe! I wasn’t aware of this type of cake until recently when my roommate introduced me. Maybe I liked the name, but I haven’t forgotten about how good hummingbird cake is! Can’t wait to try.
xoxo,
Elizabeth
http://www.adrian-james.com
These look wonderful! I love the incorporation of the fruit as well, it keeps them moist and gives them a lovely mix of flavours – want!
Great post, Katie! No, it is not spring yet where I live in Birmingham, AL. Wish it was! Hope you are enjoying D.C.
Hummingbird cupcakes have been on my list for a good long while now. This will be my kick in the butt to finally make them. Perfect for Spring time.
These sound so good right now…I might turn them into a muffin for breakfast! And it keeps getting warm where I am, then snowing. Over and over again.
We’re going in two day spurts. Two days of nice weather, two days of freezing. It’s taking everything to not get sick!
Thank you so much for this one. My mother’s version of hummingbird cake has so much oil and sugar that it sits in my stomach like a lead weight, and she doesn’t like my lighter cake mix version. Hopefully we can agree with this one!
Well it DID feel like Spring for a few days there. Now? Not so much. I can’t believe we are getting more snow tonight.
I have been making more Spring-like food too. Um, smoothies anyone? Lol.