This cake can be found on Slovak cooking websites under the name of Banana Roof or Banana Pyramid, depending on what shape the baker gives it. It’s fun to do, especially if you have an extra pair of hands to help. My Mum and I made it for Easter like we used to when I was a girl. Mum has a passion for baking, as well as plenty of expertise in the field, so I made the most of her stay.

Creamy Banana No-bake Cake

• 2 packets butter biscuits (we used wholemeal ones)
• 2 ripe or overripe bananas
• 1 packet vanilla pudding powder* (to cook with ½ l milk)
• 250 g butter
• 100 g castor sugar

For chocolate icing:

• 100 g cooking chocolate
• 50 g margarine or shortening

*If you can’t get hold of pudding powder in your country, look for custard or any other powder for preparing pastry cream. In Slovakia, a packet of pudding powder is meant to be cooked in ½ l milk.

Method:

1. Place 3 rows of 6 biscuits on a large sheet of tinfoil. Take the butter out of the fridge and let it soften. Cook vanilla pudding or custard according to the instructions on the packet. Let cool down, stirring from time to time to prevent skin forming on the surface.
   

   
2. Cream the butter with the sugar in a bowl until smooth. Fold in the cool pudding or custard and spread half of the cream onto the biscuits. When doing so, ask someone to hold the rows together, as the biscuits tend to slide on the tinfoil.
   

   
3. Place another layer of the biscuits on top and spread the other half of the cream on them. Make sure to reserve some cream for the top of the cake.
4. Peel the bananas and place them along the middle row of the biscuits. Lift the other two up and press them against the bananas.
   

   Place the bananas along the middle row of the biscuits.

   

   Lift the other two rows of the creamed biscuits and press them gently towards the bananas to encase them.
5. Spread the reserved cream on top and cover with a row of biscuits to make a ‘roof’. Apply a thin film of the cream all around the cake structure.
   

   Fill in the gaps in the cake structure with some more cream and cover with another layer of the biscuits.

   

   Spread a thin film of the remaining cream all over the cake to better hold the chocolate icing at the next stage.
6. Prepare the icing by putting the margarine/shortening in a small saucepan and melting it on a cooker over a low heat. Break the chocolate bar into small pieces and add to the melted margarine. Stir until well-combined, smooth and shiny.
7. Pour a thin layer of the warm chocolate icing all over the cake starting from the top. As the chocolate runs down the cake walls, return it back up using a long confectioner’s knife. You have to work fast or engage someone to help you at this stage, because the chocolate sets quite quickly as it cools.

   

8. When the chocolate icing has set and hardened, wrap the cake up in the tinfoil and put it in the fridge for 2 hours.

Tip 1: Only slice as many pieces as needed per serving, and kept the rest of the cake wrapped up in the fridge. This way, the cake not only stays fresh longer, but the biscuits soften nicely while soaking up the cream and its flavours.

Tip 2: You’re more than likely to have some chocolate icing left, as it happened to me. I used it to glaze another cake I was making for Easter. However, when stored in an air-tight container, the icing will survive in the fridge for weeks.