Banket
It’s been a few years since I made banket. I want to make it every year but it doesn’t always happen. This year I was determined to do it and so I did! And a lot of it! This was the best batch that I’ve made yet. It took one test batch with an almond past filling explosion to get the ratio of filling to pastry correct but after that the remainder baked up beautifully! The problem seems to happen if you try to overfill the pastry. When I rolled out the first batch I didn’t make them quite as long and so there was a thicker piece of filling rolled up inside that couldn’t be held in when expanding while baking.
After figuring out how long to roll out the dough I was able to make some beautiful sticks of delicious pastry! They always leak a little bit of filling, but you get to cut that off and nibble on it. Not a problem at all.
The dough is so tender and extremely flakey. I used a food processor to make the dough and it comes together very quickly and easily.
What happens when you fill them a bit too full!
Try some chocolate!
This year I ended up making several batches due to high demand from friends and family. Each batch ended up being only 3/4 of the recipe posted, and I made 9 banket each time, so a little shorter than the posted recipe. You can make them however big or small you want.
I also tried a couple of different things this year in the filling. I added some chopped chocolate to one, and some leftover mascarpone frosting to another. Delicious. I think it would be a lot of fun to experiment with lots of different fillings.
——————————————————————————————
Banket
Ingredients
Dough
4 cups flour
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 pound cold butter, cut into small pieces
scant 1 cup cold water
Filling
1 pound of almond paste
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
To Finish
1-2 Egg yolks
Directions
Dough: mix together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Add the pieces of cold butter and cut into the flour mixture with a pastry blender until the butter is about pea sized. Make a well in the middle and add cold water, mix until a shaggy dough is formed, don’t over mix. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate overnight.
For the filling, break up almond paste in a bowl. Add eggs, sugar, and vanilla. Mix well. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
The next day cut divide both the dough and the filling into 8 equal portions, use a scale if you have it.
Take one piece of dough and roll out into a long, thin rectangle, approximately 13x4 inches. Place one piece of filling on the rolled out dough, spreading it along the length of dough, a little closer to one side, forming an even line. Roll up the long way, folding the ends under. Pinch together slightly so the filling doesn’t ooze out.
Dock the rolls with a fork, brush with egg yolks.
At this point you can stick the pans in your freezer until the Banket is frozen hard. Then you can wrap them up and bake off as needed.
Bake at 400 degrees for 25-30 minutes until golden brown. Let cool before slicing into 1-2 inch pieces, enjoy!