poh's 'the best banana cake in the world'

It's pretty gutsy of Poh to declare in her cookbook that this is 'the best banana cake in the world' but after making the recipe myself, I'm convinced. It's a rather good recipe; the banana cake is fluffy and moist with just the right amount of sweetness through it to tempt you to eat that extra slice (or if you are like my uncle, you might sit there and keep cutting off slice after slice!)

Preheat oven to 150 degrees fan forced. Line a 20cm round cake tin with baking paper. In a large bowl, cream together 125g softened unsalted butter, 115g brown sugar, 115g caster sugar and 1 tsp vanilla extract until pale and fluffy. Add 2 large eggs one at a time. Add in 185g sifted plain flour, 2 1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp bicarb soda and 1/4 tsp salt and fold until fully incorporated into the mix. Add 60mL full cream milk and 3 overripe mashed bananas and fold in. Pour the batter into the prepared tin.

Bake for 40 minutes until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before release the cake from the tin. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, combine 50g softened unsalted butter (ideally room temperature/don't go crazy melting it the microwave - you need the butter still a little bit firm so that the final icing keeps its shape), 60g icing sugar and 2-3 tbsp lemon juice with an electric beater until pale and fluffy. Spread over the top of the cake.

Poh suggests a dusting of 35g roasted and chopped hazelnuts which I didn't have at the time but can imagine it to be quite handy to give the cake a little bit of crunch. The cake is perfectly fine without the hazelnuts and well, this is the second recipe I've made from Poh's cookbook and so far the recipes have been spot on. So easily to follow and use, and I'm constantly tempted by all the other recipes in the book; all fighting for me to look at them and cook them!