Banana-na Cake

Nana's a prolific banana cake baker. Every time I stayed at nana's she'd always have one sitting on the bench to be taken home to Auckland. Most of the time it made it back intact, but once or twice we'd get hungry on the way home and eat a slice. Work lunches that next week were the best! I delved through Nana's recipes positive I'd come up with at least one banana cake recipe, but on my first pass I came up empty handed. Then... success! I'd put a pile of recipes aside in my 'to try' pile and 'Bella's Favourite Banana Cake' was among them.
Our hopeless oven did cause a few problems, with the cake taking 1hr 15 rather than 45 minutes to cook. I was a bit worried about the result, but it turned out perfectly! It was a high, moist cake that wasn't 'soggy' in the middle or on the bottom.
I had a few limes left over from dinner the night before (mmm Frangelico and lime on ice), so made a tart lime icing with the zest and juice of two limes.

Delish!

The Russians are coming!

After having it in practically every lunchbox from the age of about 10 to 17, I never thought I'd ever eat Russian Slice again... let alone bake it myself!

Looking for something a bit different for Neil's 'elevenses' and 'fourses' this week I found myself thinking back to the baked treats that Mum used to make. Coconut Rough was out because Neil doesn't like coconut, chocolate chip biscuits have been done to death, and he had birthday cake the other week, so that left the Russian!

Surprisingly it came out exactly as I remembered it... kinda cakey and full of juicy sultanas. I'll have to check with Mum what sort of icing she used to use, because the thin layer of vanilla just seemed too sweet.

I can see this one returning to my repertoire.