I wish I had an excuse to make such an extravagant looking delicious banana-rum cake with cream cheese icing and walnuts.. but I don't

We had three bananas ready for banana cake last Thursday. It is now Monday and I decided they were more than ready for banana cake. Completely black and super mushy!

I wanted something a little more indulgent than the typical banana bread. Try banana cake. The cake mixture is from Smitten Kitchen "Caramel Walnut Upside Down Cake". I altered it slightly and added a cream cheese icing - good move.

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 large eggs

1 generous cup of mashed very very ripe bananas (3-4 bananas depending on size)

3 tbsp sour cream (or yoghurt or buttermilk)

1 tbsp dark rum (I used bundy..)

1 3/4 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp bicarb soda

1/2 tsp salt

Preheat the oven to 170C fan forced. Grease and line two 20cm sandwich tins.

Cream the butter and sugars. Add the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well. Add the banana, sour cream and rum and beat again. At this stage my mixture curdled and looked entirely unappetising - don't worry if this happens because when I added the flour it all turned lovely and shiny again.

Fold in the sifted flour, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt very gently.

Divide the mixture between the two greased cake pans. Bake on the middle shelf in the oven for 25-30 minutes (mine was 29 mins) or until they spring back when touched and start to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Leave to cool in their pans for about 5 minutes, then put onto a cake rack to cool completely. Ice when cold.

Cream Cheese Icing

In a bowl beat together 250g cream cheese, 3 tbsp butter, 1 tsp of rum (or more to taste) and the zest and juice of one large lemon. Gradually add 4 cups of icing sugar. Mix until you have a smooth consistency.

Place one cake (rounded side down) onto the serving plate. Cover generously with icing, and then sprinkle with lots of roughly chopped walnuts. Place the second cake on top, rounded side up, and cover with more icing. Decorate with more walnuts.

Store it in the fridge.