Serves 4-6

These take a little more time and effort to prepare but the result is worth the effort. It is best to chill the banana filling for a few hours to allow it to firm up before piping on to the crisp pastry.

About 300g puff pastry
2 ripe bananas
Squeeze of lemon juice
150ml double cream
2 tbsp crème de banane (optional)
200ml double cream
Icing sugar, for dusting

For the crème patissière
200ml whole milk
3 free-range egg yolks
45g caster sugar
30g plain flour

1 Roll out the pastry to a rectangle slightly larger than 30x40cm. Leave a little excess so that you can trim the edges neatly after baking. Cut into four long rectangles of 30x10cm. Using a long palette knife, lift these on to a baking sheet and score to mark out four equal rectangles. Chill for 20 minutes while you preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6.
2 Bake the puff-pastry rectangles for 10 minutes in the hot oven, then place another heavy baking sheet on top of the pastries to weigh them down. Bake for another 7-10 minutes until golden-brown and crisp. Remove and cool on a wire rack, then cut along the scored lines to get smaller rectangles.
3 To make the crème patissière, scald the milk in a saucepan. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together, then stir in the flour. When the milk begins to bubble up the sides of the pan, remove from heat and slowly trickle the hot liquid on to the yolk mixture, whisking continuously. Strain the mixture through a sieve into the pan.
4 Stir the mixture over a low heat for a few minutes until just below boiling point. Press the thick custard through a fine sieve into a bowl and leave to cool completely, stirring occasionally to prevent a skin from forming.
5 Purée the banana in a food processor or liquidiser with a squeeze of lemon juice to prevent the fruit from browning. In a large bowl, whisk together the double cream and crème de banane until the mixture is softly stiff. Mix the banana purée into the cooled crème patissière, then fold in the whipped cream. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag. (If preparing in advance, chill the bag in the refrigerator for a few hours, or overnight.)
6 When ready to serve, pipe a layer of banana filling over a pastry rectangle. Top with another rectangle and pipe another layer of filling over. Repeat until you end up with a four layer “sandwich”. Repeat for the remaining pastry rectangles and filling. Dust the top with icing sugar to serve.

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