Banket

I love this recipe, but when in a hurry I used the Wewalka Puff Pastry dough available at Walmart and HyVee. It is so flaky. So much better than Pepperidge Farm.

Delicious, but the recipe was pretty unclear even as an experienced baker – this was my first time making banket and it would have been nice to know how wide my strips should have been. I made them about four inches wide but there was way too much filling and they were nearly impossible to seal, and one of them I couldn’t seal at all because it was the edge of my circle/rectangle that I had rolled the dough into. Tasted great, but not very pretty. If I make this again I would make a little less filling or more pastry.

Great recipe close to the one I had from home as a little kid. My dough was still a bit thick but tasted amazing.

Delicious!!

Okay, this is the first time I made anything like this. I used to watch my Michigan Grandma make Banket. Heres the thing, though, there seems to be some ingredients not in the dough. My dough would not hold together to roll out. I tried adding a smidgen of milk and that helped a little. Also with the dough, it tasted powdery on the finished Banket. It wasn’t flakey either. I don’t understand what went wrong. I can’t ask my Grandma, since she is long passed. The finished Banket doesn’t look anything like what I remember. This is so disappointing. Also, I didn’t understand why the recipe called for more stuff to be added to the chilled paste. That didn’t make any sense to me and in fact caused the filling to ooze out during the baking. I’m super disappointed. I wish someone could explain to me about what went wrong all through the recipe.

This is much better than the recipe passed down through my husband’s family. I’ve used almond cake and pastry filling (mistake) and it’s still good! It’s sweeter, the texture is smoother, and the crust is flakier (due to the added moisture). But, it doesn’t fill the inner role as well…you get a layer of air.

Great! Exactly like the banket recipe found on the beanilla website. Thanks for re-posting here!! Love it!

I REALLY loved this recipe! Not the easiest to make, but I took the advice of the others who submitted their “tips”, and it helped tremendously. My question is in the ingredients: it calls for 3/4 cup white sugar, and then tells you to “use the remaining sugar”. WHAT remaining sugar if you are using ALL of what was called for? Thanks for the great recipes.

My family has this every year at Christmas to celebrate our Dutch heritage but we always bought it. I tried this recipe and it turned out so well! I couldn’t find it in the store where I live now so now I can keep up the tradition by making it!

This recipe is perfect and authentic. We thought we lost our Dutch grandma’s recipe and used this recipe instead and it was terrific. We later found her recipe and it is the same….no wonder!

Made this last year, worked out great. I accidentally used almond filling instead but still was good.

Excellent! Easy. Since I’ve never had this before it helped to have the “play-doh snake” reference to go with. Then I just flattened the dough to about 13 – 14″ x 4 ” and put the filling on top, folded it over down one side and each end – sealing the ends w a little water. Sealed it all up the second side w a little water, flipped it over, and used a tiny cocktail fork to score it all the way down before brushing w egg white and sprinkling w raw sugar. I did use a lot of flour so as not to stick as rolling out. Came out perfectly. Killer pastry! Thanks. Got a second batch in the fridge overnight. Definitely keep ingredients in fridge (filling in freezer even) between “snakes”! Also wet hands w little water to handle filling. Use parchment paper. Cut w straight edge knife straight down – no serrated edges. Don’t “saw” at it. Flavor is amazing. I sprinkled half the batch w lots ‘o cinnamon before putting filling in. Oh yeah.

Being from Michigan I have had these blankets before and love them, so this year I thought I would give it a try… Just took them out of the oven and what a mess… I wasn’t sure how thick to make the dough when rolling it out and the filling was very very wet… I thought it would have been like play dough where you could roll it out like a snake and place it in the dough. Cutting the butter into the flour was a major task all on it own. Okay, just tasted it and it was fairly good, the crust was a little chewy, so I think I over worked it. But I will try again until I get it perfected. Thanks everyone for all of your suggestions.

Overall a very good recipe, with a couple of caveats. To begin with, the instructions are poorly written. In #1 – butter “or margarine”? These are not equivalent substitutions and would yield dramatically different results in both texture and flavor. It should just say “butter”. Next, the ingredient list includes 3/4 cup sugar, all of which are used in instruction #3. Yet, instruction #4 references sprinkling with “remaining sugar”. There isn’t any remaining sugar! Instruction # 4 says to rolls dough into 15 inch strips, but does not say how wide. I recommend 5 inches. Also, the sealing instructions are poor. I recommend folding one long side over the filling. brushing water on the tops of the now-folded and unfolded sides, then folding up the other side to “glue” the roll shut across the top. apply more water to the open small ends (about 1.5 incles worth) and fold over twice to seal. The roll should then be flipped over and placed onto a parchment lined baking sheet. (Don’t bother greasing. Parchment works better). Lastly, the almond extract is completely unnecessary. Using an almond paste like Solo brand provides a very intense almond flavor with no additional almond additives required. — all these (minor) criticisms aside, the result was excellent. Flaky pastry, tender filling, and plenty of yumminess to feed a crowed. I’ll definitely make it again.

YUM! I halved the recipe, but probably had enough filling to make two more. put cherries on top of one of the sticks, really liked it.Very easy to make.

I have made banket several times in the past, but this was by far the best ever. Loved it! Definitely a keeper. Some people spread marmalade over the top as soon as it comes out of the oven- very tasty, too.

I read all the reviews and tried to obey all the suggestions, filming as I went.

I have been making these almond pastries for about 50 years. Friends and relations often ask me for more specific directions, so I wrote these out and thought I would share it here. 1. Divide the dough into 4 equal parts. 2. On a floured pastry cloth with floured hands, roll one part out snake-like, about 1″ in diameter. 3. Using a sleeved rolling pin, slightly flatten the “snake” long-ways until about 20″ long. 4. Continue rolling short ways until the strip is about 5″ wide. The long edges can be a little thinner than the middle part. 5. If you are using a pastry bag or plastic bag for the filling, cut about 1″ off of the tip. (Cut edge will also be about 1″ wide.) 6. Fill the bag with the almond filling and squeeze a tube of the filling down the middle of the strip of dough, leaving about 1 1/2 inches on each end free of filling. (The “rope” of filling should be about 1″ in diameter.) 7. Turn the short ends of the pastry in. 8. Fold one long edge loosely over the rope of filling. 9. Using your fingers, apply water to the other long edge. 10. Loosely lap the wet edge over the other edge. (Filling will expand when baking, so leaving it some space will help avoid leakage.) 11. Lightly press the edges down with the back of a fork. 12. Transfer the tube to the baking sheet. 13. Form into desired shape. I like to make “J’s” They are easy and can be a candy cane, shepherd’s crook, or “J” for Jesus. 14. Brush the pastry with the egg whites. 15. Bake as directed.

I loved the filling and pastry. Filling had the right flavour, but maybe a little gooey. The filling was flaky and texture was perfect, although there could have been a tiny bet more of it to wrap around the yummy filling. I might increase the proportion of pastry versus filling next time I make it, although its great the way the recipe is too.

Used this recipe for bear claw filling because it is less time-consuming. People like it. I still have some filling in the freezer. Next time I’ll make the real banket.

My husband is new to West Michigan and had never heard of banket before. He agreed to bring the banket to the office Christmas party, having no idea what it was. He followed this recipe exactly as written without reading any of the reviews or hints. It was a disaster and he couldn’t take it to work. It was burned on the bottom, every fold split open, there was filling everywhere. I laughed so hard when I saw them! They looked more like large danishes than banket. I am giving this 4 stars though because by just eating the top of the crust and some filling, it was so delicious! The ingredients were perfect, but definitely follow other reviewers’ recommendations before actually making the banket.