This recipe for Banoffee Vol Au Vents was invented one day when I had some puff pastry left over after making a salmon pithivier pie. (That recipe will go up on the website soon!) I hate throwing ingredients out if they can be put to a good use, so I created these little mouthfuls of gorgeousness with the leftover puff pastry.

Ready rolled gluten-free puff pastry is really easy to find nowadays and tends to work in the same way as normal puff pastry, so it’s perfect for making these Banoffee Vol Au Vents. This is a ridiculously simple recipe, but I can assure you, it’s well worth making these because they’re so tasty!

In terms of a low FODMAP portion size they are gluten-free, so that’s nothing to worry about, but a low FODMAP portion of dark chocolate is 30g (at the time of writing) which would equate to six Banoffee Vol Au Vents. That’s quite a hefty portion though and you do need to consider the fat content of the pastry itself and the effect it can have on the gut, so I’d advise that a sensibly low FODMAP portion would be 2 Banoffee Vol Au Vents. Any more than that and you’re on your own, my friend.

I’d never made my own vol au vents before, but I will hold my hands up and say that it really was very easy, involving little more than cutting out circles of pastry and then indenting a smaller ring inside them and then brushing the outer ring with beaten egg. (You can brush the vol au vents with a little bit of non-dairy milk and use vegan marshmallows if you’d like to keep the dessert vegan.) They cooked in no time at all and looked pretty much like shop-bought versions (albeit, just a little wonkier around the edges…).

I might have taken a few liberties with the name of this dessert, but these Banoffee Vol Au Vents are just as tasty as their namesake pie. They’re made from crisp little vol au vents which have a disc of fresh banana baked inside them and then have a layer of melted dark chocolate and are topped with a vanilla-scented toasted marshmallow. Quite frankly, they’re to die for.

Ingredients:

1 pack of gluten-free puff pastry (around 300g)

1 banana (ripe, but with no dark marks on the skin)

16 squares of dark chocolate (I used 80g)

16 marshmallows (use vegan marshmallows if preferred)

1 egg (beaten) or 2 tbsps non-dairy milk

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200C/180C Fan/400F/Gas Mark 6 and have a couple of greaseproofed baking trays to hand as well as a 6 cm pastry cutter and a 4 cm one too.

(If you don’t have any pastry cutters you can use anything that is circular and will cut through the pastry while allowing you to prise the pastry out of the ring cutter. In times of need I’ve even used things like baby bottle caps and discs of plastic cut from juice bottles!)

Roll out the puff pastry on a gluten-free floured surface until it is around half a centimetre (1/4 of an inch) thick.

Cut out 16 circles using the largest pastry cutter and put them on the greaseproofed baking trays before using the smaller pastry cutter to make smaller indented circles centred inside them. (Try not to cut all the way through the pastry, but it’s not the end of the world if you do.)

Cut the banana into 16 discs and place them in the smallest circle. Brush the edges of the vol au vents with beaten egg or non-dairy milk.

Bake them in the oven for 10-15 mins until they are puffed up and golden brown.

Use a teaspoon to gently push the banana centre down into the base of the vol au vent and then place a square of dark chocolate on top of the banana disc and top it with a marshmallow.

Put them back into the hot oven for 3-5 mins until the marshmallow has started to brown and is melting. Remove from the oven and serve.

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