Banana Cake with Italian Meringue Buttercream and Salted Caramel Popcorn

This post should really just be titled - "How to repeatedly fail at caramel sauce".

Counting up all the attempts at caramel sauce I've had makes for a very sad and sticky slideshow of toffee, burnt sugar, and most other disasters you can imagine. 

This cake creation resulted in two batches of failed caramel sauce. For someone who struggles so much to get it right, you would be surprised to know that I still threaten my success by cutting corners. 

Yep - it was new going to work. Having missed picking up cream after two trips to the shops already - I was not going back. Milk is just like heavy cream yeah!

Uh no! it really isn't. 

Well luckily the new banana cake recipe and my first attempt at Italian meringue covered for it - literally! 

Credit to Martha for the fail-safe buttercream recipe and Jullian's bakery for the most amazing salted caramel popcorn in Sydney.