Banana cake with passionfruit icing

Donna's donna

Morning all! Yesterday I had lady finger bananas to use up (I stupidly forgot I don't like lady finger bananas when I bought them) and some frozen passionfruit too so this recipe was perfecto for my cause! It's from issue 21, page 170, and it was very straight forward, I didn't change anything apart from baking the cake about 10 minutes longer but thats fairly usual for our oven.

The missing slice is PFB's husband tax

The cake without any icing (when PFB's tax was charged) was a little on the dry side... but that may have been my fault because it was a little under cooked when the timer went off so I put it back in and promptly forgot about it until the next add break in Offspring.... :o) But once it was iced it was perfect so maybe it was for the better anyway! Oh and I didn't have time to wait for the lemon juice and passionfruit to cool completely before adding the icing sugar so the icing was a little runny, but that's my fault, not donna's!

And by-the-by, this recipe taught me the difference between allspice and mixed spice - I had mixed spice and was going to substitute it but when I googled the two and realised they weren't the same I changed my mind. I'm glad I did because I think it's the allspice in this cake that gives it a really nice flavour (well, apart from the banana of course!!). The link is below for anyone else interested

http://womansday.ninemsn.com.au/food/foodfeatures/993536/allspice-mixed-spice-and-five-spice

Basic Vanilla Pastry

Here is the pastry recipe, as promised!

Before this recipe, I was always afraid of making my own pastry. I had heard that it was finicky, time consuming, and really not that much nicer than store bought pastry.

I tried several times to make my own pastry the 'old fashioned way' (without a food processor) and failed miserably.

This recipe is quick, easy and so delicious you will never want to buy store bought pastry again!

Just a few important tips: (Most of these points are mentioned in the recipe, but I think they are so super important I am going to mention them all again :)

• Use iced water (just as she says!). My friend showed me the easy way, small jug, water, ice cubes. simple. This advice after several attempts at partially freezing the water in the jug and it taking FOREVER and then forgetting about it so it was rock hard. Haha!

• Make sure your butter is straight out of the fridge

• Don't put in all the water Donna says. I just slowly add water until the dough in the food processor forms a ball and then I stop adding water immediately.

• This is just me, and I know people have been making pastry for years without modern technology, but save yourself the tears and don't even think of making this pastry without a food processor. If you have and it was a success, good for you, you are a far better cook than I.

• I roll my pastry out between two sheets of glad wrap. It is so easy to work with this way.

Happy pastry making!

P.s. A special shout out must go to my good friend Megan, who without her faithful support I would never have even attempted to make pastry ever again! She walked me through every step that first successful time and I owe her a debt of delicious gratitude <3

Issue 38, Page 118