Every function, and I mean any function, my eldest aunty would make this and bring it. If every I did a favour for her, she would repay with this pie.

When she brought this to a function, everyone and I mean everyone would fight for the bowl, my uncle and I always seemed to hide the dish away before any even noticed it was at the table, we landed up sharing although sometimes I think he took a spoonful more than me.

When my gran passed away, we stopped having family gatherings and each one went their own my, my aunty went her way with her recipe. I have tried numerous times to get the recipe out of her, but she would rather make me the dish than pass on the recipe.

That of course was until I found out google existed lol.

This year for Christmas I made my gran’s trifle, one massive one that managed to last the car journey while I drove 20km/h praying that when I opened the boot it would still be in the container.

My uncle and even my father were so excited when I told them I bringing a pudding, but when they saw the trifle, they were so disappointed, they were both under the impression that I would be making the banana cream pie… unfortunately not.

When I went home that evening, I went about testing recipes and trying to locate one that looked like it had all the ingredients that I can remember she put in her pie. Nothing seemed to resemble it, so I adapted an easy recipe and hey presto we had one that tasted just like hers…. 13 recipes, 12 tubes of cream and about 60 bananas later we finally had a banana cream pie.

Ingredients:

• 1 x packet Moir’s instant vanilla pudding.
• 500ml x milk.
• 1 x madeira loaf.
• 3 x banana’s
• Lemon juice, put in a spray bottle.
• 1 x tsp vanilla essence.
• 500ml x whipping cream.
• A cherry for decorations.
• 1 x cup castor sugar.

Method:

• Peel and slice your bananas… to prevent the bananas from going brown… spray with the lemon juice and toss to coat the slices.

• Cut the madeira loaf into bite sized cubes and set aside.

• In a bowl, whisk the milk and the instant pudding together till it thickens and set aside.

• Whisk the cream, castor sugar and the banana essence together till soft peaks start to form.
• In a rectangular dish, roughly layer the cubed madeira cake.
• Fold the bananas in the pudding mixture and pour this mixture over the cubes.
• Using a spoon, carefully mix the pudding layer with the cake layer and evenly spread the layer to cover the entire bottom of the dish.

• Using a clean knife spread the cream over the top and for a finishing touch, cream a pattern on the top.
• Top with a cherry and pop into the fridge to chill.