My eldest lad is what you would call a dedicated fruit
dodger.
I can’t say I’m surprised really, given my own childhood
aversion to most fruit – something my own mother takes glee in reminding me of.
We play this wonderful game of lunchbox fruit boomerang. And
by wonderful, I actually mean painfully frustrating.
Anything other than strawberries is destined to return home,
worse for wear baring the bruises of a day spent roughly tumbled around a
school bag.
In my fight against waste, I serve the same fruit up next to
his dinner with a stern word.
He takes particular offence to bananas, even in muffin form,
they tend to return home with hearty complaints.
So I celebrate the below recipe as not only being delicious,
but also a win as it was gobbled up in record time by the non-banana eating lad
in the family.
Not sure it will really cut it for fruit time at school, but
it does seem to provide a little incentive in the form of a no fruit – no cake
policy.
Banana Cake
Ingredients
1 ½ cups plain flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon bicarb soda
1 ½ cups caster sugar
3/4 cup walnuts, roasted and roughly chopped
2 eggs
1 cup mashed banana (2-3 large ripe bananas)
125g softened butter, cubed
100ml natural yoghurt
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Icing
250g cream cheese, at room temp
125g butter, at room temp
500 icing sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla
¼ cup desiccated or shredded coconut
Method
Pre-heat oven to 180C and line a 22cm cake tin with baking
paper.
Mash your bananas to a pulp, blitzing in a blender or
processor if easier.
Put them in your mixer (or just keep using your processor)
and add sugar, eggs, and butter, mixing until thick and creamy.
Add yoghurt and vanilla and mix again until combined.
Sift in the flour, baking powder and baking soda and mix
until combined. Fold in the walnuts.
Pour mixture into prepared tin and bake for 45-50 minutes,
or until a skewer comes out clean.
Remove from oven and allow to cool.
To make the icing, place the cream cheese and butter in a
mixer on medium-high speed until creamy and well combined.
Add the icing sugar and vanilla and mix again on low (vital
or it will be snowing in your kitchen), slowly increasing the speed as the
icing sugar is combined. Beat until smooth and creamy.
Liberally spread the top and sides of the cake with icing,
before sprinkling with coconut.
Enjoy!
