Southern Banana Pudding vs Battenberg Cake

Both desserts start from the same butter, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla, but put them to very different work. The banana pudding cooks them on the stovetop into a flour-thickened custard enriched with egg yolks, then layers it warm with vanilla wafers and sliced bananas under a golden baked meringue made from the whites, or alternatively whipped cream. The Battenberg creams butter and sugar into a springy vanilla sponge, half tinted pink, cut into a checkerboard glued with apricot jam and wrapped in marzipan. One is soft and spoonable; the other is neat, sliceable and fruity with jam.