Banketletter

In my grandmother's second notebook, the page for banketletter was not much of a recipe. That is how you know it mattered. The things made every year need fewer words because the hands remember them: roll the spijs, fold the pastry, brush with egg, mind the seam. December did the rest. Children watched the oven because the letter was theirs, or so they believed, which is one of the kinder lies a Dutch household tells at Sinterklaas.

The name already tells you most of the truth. Banket is the Dutch word for fine pastry and confectionery, the good counter at the bakery, and letter means exactly what it says. This is pastry made into writing. A banketstaaf is the straight bar, respectable enough, but the banketletter has personality. The S is the old favourite, for Sinterklaas, though a first initial on the table still has the small magic of being chosen.

But let me tell you a secret: the pastry is not the luxury here. The almond paste is. Real amandelspijs, almond paste, is made from almonds and sugar in equal weight, loosened with egg and sharpened with lemon zest. If you replace it with the bland filling sold as bakery paste, the letter still looks correct and tells a lie when cut. Get the spijs right and I'll forgive shop-bought puff pastry. Hou het altijd simpel, but simple is not the same as skipped.