Dutch Letters

On Friday, my sister-in-laws and I met at my mother-in-laws and had, what I'm going to call, a Dutch Letter Day.  Let me tell you, it was an all day affair.  When it was all said and done, we made around 280 dutch letters.  Not 28, not 80 but 280 and yes, that is A LOT.  But we all are going to enjoy them and if your lucky, you might get blessed with some in the future.  :)  Anyway, we were so busy that I did not get any pictures of our progress or the fun we were having. So, I will attempt to tell you how we made these delicious morsels.  Well, they are bigger than a morsel but taste just as great!  They are even better than the dutch letters you can buy at the local bakery.

A few weeks ago, Sandy had sent out the recipe to each of us and gave us specific instructions on what each person was suppose to do.  I made 7 batches of the dough and filling.  I made and froze the filling in 9x13 disposable pans about a week in advance.  I made the dough earlier in the week and put it in zip lock baggies and stored it in the fridge.  By doing this ahead of time, we were ready to assemble them on Friday.

We got to "work" right away when we arrived at my mother-in-laws.  We first divided each batch of dough into 1/8's.  Then we rolled out an 1/8 of the dough into a rectangle.  Cutting the filling the short way, we cut each pan of filling into 1/8th's also.  Taking one of the sections of filling we would lay that across the rolled out dough.   The you fold one long side of the dough over the filling.  Using an egg wash, brush the remaining outer edges with the egg wash.  Fold in the sides and then fold the remaining dough over the top of the filling.  It's a burrito style fold.

From there, we gave the dutch letter to Sandy who packaged the letters.  She laid them on a piece of parchment paper that was twice as long as the cookie sheet. She would lay a Dutch Letter on the parchment paper and brush on some of the egg wash and then sprinkle it with rock sugar.  Then she would bring up a piece of parchment paper against the Dutch Letter and make a crease.

  And then repeat that process 3 more times.  Each package would have 4 Dutch Letters. 

She would bring the remaining parchment paper up and over the letters and then double wrap them with saran wrap. 

After this process, they are ready for the freezer.  When you are ready to bake them, preheat the oven to 400*.  Remove the saran wrap and place the frozen Dutch Letters on a cookie sheet.  Cut some of the extra parchment paper off and then pull from both ends of the paper to seperate the  letters from each other.

 Bake from the frozen state for 30 minutes.  Let cool and enjoy!

Dough:
Mix 1 pound butter with 4 cups of flour; stir in 1 cup of water.  Mix it well; it will be sticky.  Refrigerate overnight or longer.

Filling:
Beat in electric mixer until smooth:
1 lb. almond paste
Add:
2 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla
Mix well.  Spread in 9x13 pan.  Freeze.

When ready to assemble, divide both filling and dough into eight (8) parts.  Roll out each piece of dough into an oblong and put an 8th part of the filling on each.  Lap dough over each end firmly and pinch it shut.  Brush tops with 1 beaten egg white.  And sprinkle on rock sugar.