The ultimate banana cake with passionfruit honey frosting
Ready in 1 hour and 15 minutes Makes 1 medium cake
250g butter, at room temperature
1½ cups raw sugar or packed brown sugar
¼ cup honey
4 eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 large, very ripe bananas, peeled and mashed
2 level tsp baking soda
½ cup hot milk
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
PASSIONFRUIT HONEY FROSTING
100g butter, at room temperature
2 tsp honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbsp passionfruit pulp or sauce, plus extra for drizzling if desired
3 cups icing sugar, sifted
Preheat oven to 160C fan bake. Grease a 23cm-diameter springform cake tin and line the base with baking paper.
Beat together butter, sugar and honey until creamy. Add eggs, vanilla and bananas, beating hard for two to three minutes. The mixture will look quite separated. Dissolve baking soda in hot milk and add to mixture.
Gently stir in flour and baking powder until just combined (do not over-mix). Spoon into prepared tin and smooth top. Bake until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean and the top bounces back when pressed (60-70 minutes).
Cool in tin, then turn out and ice.
To make passionfruit honey frosting, beat together butter, honey, vanilla, passionfruit and icing sugar until light and fluffy (two to three minutes). Spread evenly over the cooled cake. If desired, drizzle with extra passionfruit pulp just before serving.
Store iced or uniced cake in a sealed container in a cool place for two to three days or freeze.
Match this with ... Mead Amour 1st Night French Oaked East Cape Honey Mead ($23)
Mead is one of the oldest beverages known to man, a product fermented from honey and water instead of grapes. It’s also been produced in New Zealand for over 200 years but Dennis Greeks and his team at Mead Amour have been crafting it from East Cape hillside-foraged honey for just on 20. They’ve back-blended dry honey wine with extra manuka honey and aged it in French oak barrels to achieve a rich, sweet, honey and toffee-tastic sip that slides across those banana cake crumbs and that luxurious passion-honey frosting in fabulously tasty fashion.
Available at Countdown/ Woolworths supermarkets and from Meadamour.com