Poppy’s Filo Snakes

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C in a fan oven) Gas mark 4
2. Peel the bananas and carefully split into 3 lengthways (bananas naturally come in 3 sections!)
3. Lay a sheet of filo pastry on a clean work surface and brush all over with melted butter. Fold in half, widthways and brush the surface with butter. Repeat with all 7 sheets of filo.
4. Have the folded edge of pastry in front of you, lay a length of banana across the width of the pastry, 2cm up from the edge. Spoon approximately 2 tsps of chocolate spread over the banana.
5. Starting at the folded edge, roll up the pastry around the filling to the top, (making sure you fold the sides in, so the filling doesn’t come out during baking), to create a long cigar shape and brush the top with butter. At this stage you can wrap a strawberry lace around the body of the snake, or you can do this after baking. You can also bend the snake slightly at this stage for effect! Repeat with the remaining sheets, until you have 14 snakes.
6. Transfer to a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes, until the pastry is golden.
7. Allow the snakes to cool for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. Using the strawberry laces, make forked tongues and eyes, using the icing to stick the eyes to the snake.
8. Delicious served slightly warm or cold!

Tips

• Cover the filo pastry with a clean, damp tea towel until you are ready to use it, so it doesn’t dry out.
• If you loved the flavour of cardamom, add a few crushed seeds to the nut mixture.
• For a really tasty treat, you could use chocolate spread and mini marshmallows!
• These chocolaty snakes would be perfect for a Halloween party!