Banana tarts recipe

The thinnest of tarts. It is worth rolling the pastry as finely as you can. Try placing the pastry on the baking sheet before adding the bananas. It makes life much easier than transferring them fully laden.

Makes 4

butter 40g
puff pastry 125g
bananas 2
icing sugar 2 tbsp
maple syrup 4 tbsp

For the cardamom cream:
green cardamom pods 10
double cream 250ml
icing sugar 1 tbsp
vanilla extract

Set the oven at 220C/gas mark 8. Place a baking sheet in the oven to heat up.

Melt the butter in a small pan, remove from the heat and set aside. Roll out the pastry very thinly, then cut out 4 discs about 12cm in diameter. Place them on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Peel the bananas and slice thinly, then place in a single, slightly overlapping layer on each disc. Brush the bananas and the rims of the pastry with the butter then dust generously with the icing sugar.

Place the baking sheet on the heated sheet in the oven and bake for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven then trickle the maple syrup over the bananas and return to the oven for 5 minutes until the pastry is deep golden brown and the fruit is sticky and glistening.

Meanwhile, make the cream. Crack open the cardamom pods and extract the dark seeds, then crush to a powder using a spice mill or pestle and mortar. You need 2 tsp of the ground spice. Pour the cream into a cold mixing bowl and add the icing sugar, ground cardamom and a couple of drops of vanilla extract. Beat till thick, stopping once the cream will hold its shape on the whisk.