Book summary “The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook”: summary

Introduction

You often struggle to recreate authentic American home baking because traditional British recipes rely on different measurements, textures, and techniques. You crave dense brownies, towering muffin tops, and fluffy frosted cupcakes that taste genuinely homemade yet professional.

Tarek Malouf solved this exact culinary gap by opening The Hummingbird Bakery in London to introduce classic American treats to a new audience. The central idea of the book is that you can achieve bakery-quality results at home if you follow precise measurements, master specific mixing speeds, and respect resting times.

The book guides you through foundational baking methods, structured around distinct dessert categories. You will learn how to bake and frost cupcakes, layer celebration cakes, and master cheesecakes, brownies, and cookies.

• How do you whip cream cheese frostings without splitting them?
• What causes a sponge to sink in the middle?
• How do you achieve the distinct red crumb in a velvet cake?

1. Cupcakes and Frosting Techniques

Mastering cupcake bases and high-speed whipping methods ensures light sponges and fluffy frostings.

Every oven is unique, which means baking times serve only as a guide. You should invest in an oven thermometer to ensure accurate baking results. Ovens can bake too slow or too fast. Remember that cooking times are just a guide and a cake is only done when it is done.

Essential Cupcake Recipes

Red Velvet remains the all-time favorite and best-seller at the bakery. Red Velvet cupcakes achieve their distinct color and flavor through a specific paste of cocoa powder, red food colouring, and vanilla extract. You can use Sugarflair Red Extra to reach the correct shade. The sponge incorporates buttermilk, vinegar, and bicarbonate of soda, combined in stages with a red paste and topped with cream cheese frosting.

To recreate the signature sponge, you follow specific stages in your mixer:

• Beat 120 g unsalted butter and 300 g caster sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy.
• Slowly add eggs on high speed until well incorporated.
• Mix cocoa powder, red food colouring paste, and vanilla extract into a thick paste and add to the butter mixture.
• Alternately add 240 ml buttermilk and 300 g plain flour on slow speed.
• Add salt, bicarbonate of soda, and vinegar on low speed, then beat for a couple more minutes.
• Bake in paper cases at 175°C for 20-25 minutes.

Black bottom cupcakes combine a dark chocolate sponge base with a distinct cream cheese and chocolate chip cheesecake filling. The chocolate sponge uses sunflower oil, vinegar, and bicarbonate of soda to create a darker, firmer, and less sweet base that balances the rich cheesecake dollop. You execute this process through exact preparation steps:

• Mix flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and bicarbonate of soda for the sponge base.
• Whisk oil, vinegar, vanilla extract, and water and combine into dry ingredients.
• Beat 185 g cream cheese for filling, sugar, egg, vanilla extract, and salt for the filling.
• Stir 100 g milk chocolate chips into the filling by hand.
• Scoop 1 tablespoon of filling onto the chocolate batter and bake for about 20 minutes.

Hot cross bun cupcakes feature a complex spiced sponge infused with dried fruits and a piped white chocolate cross decoration. The spice blend includes mixed spice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves, combined with 75 g sultanas, 50 g mixed peel, and chopped Granny Smith apple. You build the decoration and batter through precise actions:

• Mark 16 crosses on baking parchment as a guide using 4 x 4 cm cross dimensions.
• Melt white chocolate and double cream over a saucepan of simmering water.
• Pipe the melted chocolate mixture onto the crosses and leave to set.
• Beat sugars, orange zest, eggs, yogurt, orange juice, and oil.
• Fold in sultanas, mixed peel, and apple cubes by hand.
• Top baked and frosted cupcakes with the chocolate crosses.

Frosting Methods

Longer beating times create lighter and fluffier frosting texture. Frosting ingredients such as 500 g icing sugar for vanilla frosting, 160 g unsalted butter for vanilla frosting, 50 ml whole milk for vanilla frosting, and vanilla extract must be beaten at high speed for at least five minutes to achieve a light consistency. You construct Vanilla Frosting by following exact mixing rules:

• Beat icing sugar and butter together with a paddle attachment on medium-slow speed until sandy.
• Combine milk and vanilla extract separately and add a couple of spoonfuls at a time.
• Turn the mixer up to high speed and beat for at least five minutes until light and fluffy.

2. Cakes and Cheesecakes

Layered cakes and delicate cheesecakes rely on precise temperature control, syrup infusions, and water baths.

Layer Cakes

Creating a showstopping layered cake requires precise sugar thermometer stages for the salted caramel filling and careful horizontal slicing of sponges. The rich chocolate sponge layers are sliced in half and layered with a homemade salted caramel cooked to the soft ball stage, finished with chocolate frosting.

• Heat sugar, golden syrup, and water until auburn, then slowly whisk in cream.
• Bring caramel to 115°C on a sugar thermometer for the soft ball stage.
• Stir in sea salt and butter after cooling.
• Bake chocolate sponges in three 20-cm tins for 30-35 minutes.
• Slice each cooled cake in half horizontally.
• Layer sponge sheets with caramel filling and cover the exterior with chocolate frosting.

The mile high chocolate salted caramel cake requires 400 g plain flour, 645 g caster sugar, and 180 g cocoa powder.

Carrot cake relies on grated carrots and chopped walnuts folded into an oil-based batter, layered with cream cheese frosting. The moist sponge incorporates soft light brown sugar, sunflower oil, and warming spices like cinnamon and ginger, evenly dispersed with vegetables and nuts. Carrot cake is noted as another bestseller at The Hummingbird Bakery.

• Beat sugar, eggs, and oil until incorporated.
• Add flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, spices, and salt.
• Stir in grated carrots and chopped walnuts by hand.
• Bake in three 20-cm tins for 20-25 minutes.
• Assemble with layers of cream cheese frosting between cakes and on top.

You build this cake using 300 g soft light brown sugar, 300 ml sunflower oil, 300 g grated carrots, and 100 g shelled walnuts.

Infusing milk with tea bags enhances the flavor profile of multi-layered cakes like the grasshopper cake. Heating milk with tea bags and leaving it to steep extracts concentrated flavors before it is incorporated into the flour and butter mixture. The grasshopper cake recipe uses 235 ml whole milk steeped with 2 peppermint tea bags.

• Put 235 ml milk in a saucepan over medium-high heat until small bubbles form.
• Add tea bags and leave to cool and steep for at least two hours.
• Remove tea bags, wring out, and discard.

Drizzling cakes with a reduced fruit syrup adds intense moisture and flavor directly into the sponge. Extracting liquid from fresh ingredients, reducing it with sugar into a syrup, and applying it to baked sponges prevents dryness. The coconut meringue cake uses freshly extracted coconut water and milk reduced into a syrup.

• Pierce eyes of fresh coconut and strain milk into a jug.
• Add water to make 250 ml, add 60 g sugar, bring to boil and simmer for two to three minutes.
• Drizzle over baked and cooled cake layers.

Using regular soft drinks in cake batters imparts unique moisture, tang, and sweetness. Non-diet sodas provide sugar and acidity that react well with leavening agents, while marshmallow fluff adds gooey texture. The chocolate cola cake incorporates 350 ml of non-diet cola and 125 g of marshmallow fluff.

• Bring cola, butter, oil, and cocoa powder to a boil over low heat.
• Pour hot mixture into sugar, flour, and marshmallow fluff.
• Combine bicarbonate of soda and buttermilk in a jug before adding.

An eggless chocolate custard thickened with cornflour creates a stable, dense filling and coating for traditional regional cakes. Cooking a mixture of water, sugar, golden syrup, cocoa powder, and a cornflour slurry until glossy, then stirring in butter, yields a rich custard that firms upon chilling. The Brooklyn blackout cake replicates the famous Ebinger's Bakery recipe using 700 ml water, 85 g cornflour, and 350 g caster sugar.

• Boil sugar, golden syrup, cocoa powder, and 700 ml water in a large saucepan.
• Mix cornflour with 75-90 ml water until glue-like and whisk into the cocoa mixture.
• Boil for three to four minutes, stir in butter and vanilla extract, cover with clingfilm, and chill.

Ring moulds and Bundt tins must only be filled to a maximum capacity to prevent overflows during baking. Because batters with high leavening agents expand significantly, overfilling ring moulds causes messy oven spills. Lemon and poppy seed cake and blueberry cake recipes warn bakers to fill ring moulds no more than two-thirds full.

• Fill whatever ring mould tin you have to a maximum of two-thirds full.
• Bake according to recipe times until the sponge bounces back when touched.

Cheesecakes and Pies

Baking cheesecakes in a water bath ensures even cooking and prevents the outer edges from drying out.

Placing a springform cake tin inside a larger tray filled with cold water insulates the dairy proteins, keeping the texture smooth and creamy without cracking. New York cheesecake and chocolate cheesecake are baked inside a deep baking tray filled with cold water reaching two-thirds up the tin.

• Prepare the biscuit or flour base and press firmly into the springform tin.
• Beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla on slow speed, adding eggs one at a time.
• Place tin inside a larger tray filled with cold water to two-thirds height.
• Bake until golden brown but still wobbly in the centre.

You require 900 g cream cheese and an operating temperature of 150°C.

Gelatine allows cheesecakes to set firmly in a refrigerator without requiring oven baking. Soaking gelatine leaves in tepid water and tempering them into a warm fruit and dairy base ensures the structure solidifies properly upon chilling. The fridge-set banana cheesecake uses 6 gelatine leaves, 300 g cream cheese, and 2 hours minimum refrigeration.

• Soak gelatine leaves in barely tepid water according to manufacturer's instructions.
• Heat mashed bananas and orange juice for five to six minutes, then cool slightly.
• Stir soaked gelatine into the warm banana mixture until melted.
• Temper with a portion of the cream cheese and egg yolk mixture, then combine fully and refrigerate.

Blind baking flaky pie crusts with weights prevents the pastry from becoming soggy under wet fillings. Lining rolled dough with greaseproof paper and baking beans cooks the edges and seals the bottom, either partially or fully depending on whether the filling undergoes subsequent baking. The basic pie crust recipe uses 180 g plain flour and 120 g cold unsalted butter rolled to 2 mm thickness.

• Beat flour and cold butter to a sandy consistency, add water incrementally to form a dough, and rest for one hour.
• Roll out to 2 mm thickness, line a 23-cm pie dish, cover with greaseproof paper, and add baking beans.
• Bake fully for 15-20 minutes then 15-20 more minutes without weights, or partially for 10 plus 10 minutes.

Pouring hot sugar syrup at the soft ball stage into whipping egg whites creates a stable, voluminous Italian meringue. Boiling sugar and water to precisely 115°C cooks the egg whites during high-speed whipping, resulting in a glossy, safe topping. Lemon meringue pie and key lime pie toppings utilize Italian meringue whipped with sugar syrup.

• Boil caster sugar covered with water in a saucepan over medium heat.
• Test syrup by dropping into cold water to form a soft ball.
• Whisk egg whites to light and foamy, then slowly pour in boiling sugar syrup at medium-high speed.
• Whisk at maximum speed for 10-15 minutes until tripled in size and very white.

3. Brownies, Muffins, and Cookies

Dense bar structures, towering muffin tops, and chilled cookie rolls demand strict structural management and resting times.

Bars and Brownies

Compressing no-bake bar mixtures with external weights ensures they compact tightly enough to slice cleanly. Pressing crumb and syrup mixtures into a tray and applying a weighted flat surface forces the ingredients together during chilling. Chocolate refrigerator bars and muesli bars use a tray covered in jam jars or tins to apply pressure.

• Mix melted butter, golden syrup, cocoa powder, and dry ingredients in a bowl.
• Press mixture firmly into a 33 x 23 x 5-cm baking tray using the back of a tablespoon.
• Cover with greaseproof paper and place a tray laden with jam jars or tins on top to apply pressure.
• Refrigerate overnight before cutting into pieces.

Rocky road bars require chilling and warming management due to their extreme hardness. Because the mixture goes extremely hard in the fridge, the recipe notes that you may need to bring it back to room temperature and use a warmed knife to cut slices cleanly. Using individual muffin cases to scoop the mixture before refrigerating allows for cute, individual servings.

• Put the milk chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth.
• Put the chocolate bars, marshmallows, honeycomb balls, apricots, raisins and cornflakes in a large bowl and pour in the melted chocolate.
• Mix with a wooden spoon until everything is well mixed and the dry ingredients are evenly dispersed.
• Press this mixture into the prepared baking tray using the back of a tablespoon to flatten and compress it.
• Sprinkle the chocolate vermicelli all over the top, cover and refrigerate for three to four hours.

Muffins and Cookies

Savory muffins feature dense, dough-like batters that benefit from ice cream scoops for portioning. Recipes like ham and mushroom or spinach and cheese produce a sticky and dense batter because of the high cheese and flour ratio combined with whole milk and eggs. Ham and mushroom muffins incorporate fried onions, mushrooms, smoked ham, and grated Cheddar cheese.

• Melt butter in a saucepan, fry onions and mushrooms until cooked, and set aside.
• Mix dry ingredients like flour and baking powder with grated cheese in one bowl, and wet ingredients like milk and egg in another.
• Slowly pour wet ingredients into the dry mixture and beat with a handheld electric whisk.
• Stir in cooked fillings and ham with a wooden spoon until evenly dispersed.
• Divide the dough-like mixture into paper cases and bake at 170°C for 30-35 minutes.

Certain muffin recipes are intentionally formulated to spill over their cases to create a characteristic muffin top. Recipes such as banana and cinnamon or maple and pecan produce excess volume when filled almost to the top, yielding a distinct domed appearance. Banana and cinnamon muffins require filling cases almost full and sprinkling extra sugar and cinnamon over the tops.

• Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and cinnamon into a bowl and beat with a whisk.
• Combine buttermilk, egg, and vanilla extract in a jug and slowly pour into the flour mixture on slow speed.
• Pour in melted butter and stir in mashed bananas or maple syrup with a wooden spoon.
• Spoon the mixture into paper cases until almost full and bake at 170°C for 30-35 minutes.

Blueberries naturally sink toward the bottom during baking due to gravity. The author notes that while dusting blueberries with flour is sometimes attempted, you cannot fight gravity, and sinking is entirely normal. Blueberry muffins combine a heavy buttermilk and flour batter with fresh blueberries folded in gently at the end.

• Sift flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and bicarbonate of soda into a mixer bowl.
• Mix buttermilk, egg, and vanilla extract in a jug and pour into the dry ingredients.
• Add melted butter and beat until smooth, then gently fold in blueberries with a wooden spoon.
• Spoon into cases until two-thirds full and bake at 170°C for 20-25 minutes.

Firming cookie dough rolls in the freezer allows for precise, clean-cut cookie discs.

By shaping dough into rolls, wrapping them in clingfilm, and setting them completely in the freezer, bakers can slice uniform discs that hold their shape before baking. White chocolate and pecan nut cookies require dividing dough into two 20 cm rolls, freezing them, and cutting them into 2 cm thick discs.

• Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time, and mix in vanilla extract.
• Sift in flour, salt, and baking powder to form a smooth dough, then stir in chocolate and pecan nuts by hand.
• Divide dough in half, shape into 20 cm rolls, wrap in clingfilm, and freeze to set completely.
• Cut dough into 2 cm thick discs, arrange on baking trays, and bake at 170°C for 10–15 minutes.

Resting gingerbread dough overnight in the refrigerator improves flavor and handling. Allowing spiced dough containing black treacle to rest overnight lets the flour fully hydrate and the spices meld, making the chilled dough much easier to roll and cut. Gingerbread men recipe instructs dividing the dough into three pieces, wrapping in clingfilm, and resting overnight in the fridge.

• Sift flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and salt together.
• Cream butter and sugar, then beat in egg and black treacle.
• Slowly add the flour mixture a couple of tablespoons at a time to form an even dough.
• Divide into three, wrap in clingfilm, and chill overnight before rolling out to 4 mm thickness and baking.

10 Key Ideas

1. Investing in an oven thermometer helps ensure accurate baking results because every oven is unique and baking times serve only as a guide.
2. Beating vanilla frosting ingredients at high speed for at least five minutes creates a light and fluffy texture.
3. Red velvet cupcakes achieve their distinct color and flavor through a specific paste of cocoa powder, red food colouring, and vanilla extract.
4. The salted caramel filling for the mile high chocolate cake requires cooking to the soft ball stage at 115°C on a sugar thermometer.
5. Baking cheesecakes inside a deep baking tray filled with cold water insulates the dairy proteins to keep the texture smooth and creamy without cracking.
6. Lining rolled pie dough with greaseproof paper and baking beans cooks the edges and seals the bottom to prevent the pastry from becoming soggy under wet fillings.
7. Pressing no-bar mixtures into a tray under a weighted surface of jam jars or tins forces the ingredients together during overnight refrigeration so they slice cleanly.
8. Filling muffin cases almost to the full line produces excess volume that yields a distinct domed appearance with characteristic overflowing muffin tops.
9. Shaping cookie dough into rolls, freezing them completely, and slicing them into uniform discs allows the cookies to hold their shape before baking.
10. Allowing spiced gingerbread dough to rest overnight in the refrigerator lets the flour fully hydrate and the spices meld, making the chilled dough much easier to roll and cut.