Banana Fruit Salad with Custard and Cake Dessert Recipe

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Two simple dessert dishes, the first is an innovative dish adapted by my wife from an old recipe her mother would sometimes serve as a dessert dish after the evening meal. Her parents who lived through the second world war and the food rationing that followed was used to the concept of 'make do and mend'; from which a lot of simple recipes derive.

In this case if any Swiss Roll was left over from earlier in the week, and before it went stale, while preparing the main meal her mother would simply put a slice into the bottom of a bowl, cover it with orange juice, add sliced banana on top and top it with custard. The dish was then set aside to cool while everyone tucked into their main course; and then served as dessert afterwards. As simple as A, B, C as shown below.

My second dessert recipe in this artcile, fruit salad and yogurt, is even quicker to prepare.

A simple recipe for a refreshing dessert that's served cool and made in the time it takes to make custard.

In fact it's so simple this dish can be prepared while you're cooking a main course and then put to one side to serve cool after your main meal.

The dish is made simply by adding some fruit juice to a slice of Swiss Roll in the bottom of each dish, adding sliced banana on top (optionally with other soft fruits) and topping up with custard.

Then wait to cool before serving.

Variation on an Old Recipe

In the original recipe my wife's mother just used bananas with Swiss Roll and custard, and a drop of orange juice. In this variation my wife also used other fruits to hand to make a simple fruit cocktail to add in with the cake and custard; which on this occasion was a couple of peaches and some yellow raspberries which I picked from the garden the day before. There is no reason why ordinary red raspberries, and/or other soft fruits, can't be used in this rather refreshing and somewhat moreish dish.

Yes most people would think of raspberries as red but a few years ago we planted several varieties of raspberry canes in the back garden to extend the growing season; spring, summer and autumn fruiting varieties, with the autumn raspberries being yellow rather than the usual red.

The main ingredients for this dessert are one thick-slice of Swiss Roll per serving, a little orange juice, Bananas, Raspberries, Peach and Custard.

There's nothing special about the custard and I assume most people know how to make it; if not the instructions are clearly given on the tin; so I'll not go into details on making custard here.

Takes no Longer to Prepare Than to Make Custard

This dessert is a quick recipe designed to be prepared in between preparing the main course e.g. while waiting for the potatoes or veg. to boil so that the dessert is ready and put to one side to cool while the main meal is served.

The few basic steps is to making this delicious and refreshing recipe is to make some custard and at the same time place a slice of Swiss Roll at the bottom of each dish and add orange juice to cover the Swiss Roll. Slice and dice the bananas and peaches and with the raspberries add on top. Top with custard and wait to cool before serving.

Serve Cool

Serving is even easier than making the dish; and for this recipe that was easiest enough. Having put the dessert to one side to cool; once everyone has finished their main course and are ready for seconds, take their dishes out and bring on the Fruit Salad and Custard with cake for them to enjoy and demolish.

Then sit back and debate on who's going to do the washing up.

For alternative serving suggestions; you could try the original recipe with just banana as the fruit, although I think the raspberries and peach definitely adds a lot of flavour to the dish making it very moreish. You may wish to experiment and add other fruits as well but to overdo it would be over kill; the recipe given here is simple and quick with just the right level of flavouring from the fruits and custard to blend in just nice as you reach the Swiss Roll at the bottom of the dish. To add too many different fruits would I think begin to detract from the impact of the Swiss Roll as you reach it; overwhelming its flavour with that of too many fruits flavours.

An Old Favourite for a Last Minute Dessert

Fancy a refreshing dessert after a main meal and nothing prepared. This simple dessert can be quickly rustled up while the kettle is boiling for the coffee.

It’s an old favourite of ours and is such a simple concept that I suspect it’s been innovated many times over. In fact just looking on the web there are loads of recipes for it, so no surprise there; although it’s so simple to make it’s hardly even a recipe.

To prepare all you need is to slice and dice your favourite fruits into individual serving dishes and pour yogurt on top of the fruits in each dish, and then serve. You could make fruit salad first and place in a fridge to cool until you’re ready to serve; then at the last minute spoon the fruit salad into individual dishes and top with yogurt. Or at the last minute just take whatever fruit you have spare in your fruit bowls, cut them into chunks in individual fruit dishes and top with yogurt. The example given in this article shows plums, tangerines and banana topped with yogurt.

Any yogurt is suitable, although the flavour of yogurt, as with the fruit used will determine the flavours of this simple dish so there is always plenty of scope for variation to taste.

Do you have seconds after most evening meals?

The word Seconds is a common usage word in England to mean desserts after a main evening meal. I am not sure if the same term is used in America, or whether Americans have another word for Seconds (dessert).

I would be interested to learn the American terms for these meals if they differ.

• Breakfast (first thing in the morning)
• Brunch aka 11’s (between breakfast and lunch) i.e. 11am.
• Lunch aka Dinner (midday) e.g. between 12 noon and 2pm.
• Tea Time aka Dinner (early evening meal) e.g. 6pm.
• Supper (late evening meal)
• Midnight Munch

The main meals are of course breakfast, lunch and tea (three meals a day); albeit brunch can be a substitute for breakfast if you miss the first meal of the day, as supper can be a late tea. However, other meal times can also be used as an occasional snack between meals; or in the case of the midnight munch, an indulgence before bed.

The evening meal in England is called tea e.g. tea time, even though it has nothing to do with drinking tea, and I only drink coffee anyway.