Puff Pastry for non-bakers
It’s much easier than you think
I had originally researched how puff pastry is made because I jumped on the Christmas Beef Wellington bandwagon this year. I’ve otherwise always avoided doing *ANY* kind of baking, but as it turns out, sometimes it is a necessary evil. All recipes I have found seem to overcomplicate things, so try this puff pastry recipe for non-bakers and you’ll be good to go.
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If you are like me, you have always said to yourself, man croissants are good, but f that, too much work… go to store to buy some: $6 for 4. Seems like a slightly better deal than painstakingly doing 10 minutes of work, throwing the dough in the fridge and then preheating an over while your dough chills…right? No way.
If you’ve ever made bread, all you have to do is add butter to your flour and water and you have puff pastry in just 4 simple ingredients! (Ok, there is definitely more to it than that, but I’m trying to get across how uncomplicated it is) After all, even I can make it!
With a kitchen mixer, it’s super easy; even without, you’re golden (toasted, crispy, delicious)!
Techniques galore
So, there are a few techniques that can be used to make puff pastry, depending on the ultimate use. The key is to keep the dough cold until you craft it, mould it, and play with it as much as needed (and not more). The result is a nice, fluffy, light and crispy pastry that can be used for pastry on it’s own, chocolate croissant, ham and cheese roll, puff pastry pigs-in-a-blanket, etc.
To do these totally by the book, it requires many steps, chilling, rechilling, rolling, rechilling… so use these shortcuts (especially if using your puff for something. Ok, so here’s the secret… which I discovered totally accidentally but will definitely use again!
In a kitchen mixer, add flour, water and salt, make a dough, roll it flat and then take your cold (COLDEST!) grated/mini-cube butter, fold over, roll out flat again. Just don’t let the butter get warm.
Fold over into thirds or quarters and toss back in the fridge right away. Your dough will look smooth, with maybe only a few butter chunks visible.
Contingency:
If mixing by hand, before full dough is fully done, you can toss in your butter shavings/chunks. This doesn’t change the fact that the butter needs to be cold. Don’t knead too much, don’t work with warm butter. That is all.
Important note:
I’ve seen tons of complicated recipes with mixing in the dough before the water and then the water needs to be warm (but not too warm) and then rolling and folding, and folding again and rolling some more. …if my shortcut makes sense, do it my way. It’s about 30% of the work and results in about 95% the perfect puff pastry.
How the science works
The key here is to layer your flour/water/salt dough with cold butter. If the butter isn’t cold, it doesn’t layer the same and, more importantly, butter doesn’t expand and puff up within the dough. Fat expands and that’s ultimately why your basic dough will become flakey and puffy! So, if you’re a non-baker like I am, try this puff pastry for non-bakers!
Puff Pastry for non-bakers
Equipment
- n/a
Ingredients
- 4 cups all purpose flour some extra for dusting
- 1½ cup water cold
- 2 tsp salt
- 3 cup butter very cold (unsalted if preferred) – shredded
Instructions
A lot of true bakers will disagree with how easy I made this… not good technique but works really well for most uses!
- Whisk together flour and salt.
- Mix in water. Dough will be come very rough (should not feel like bread dough) and will be still a little clumpy. That's fine.
- Roll dough out flat.
*this is where the "close enough" shortcut begins*
- Grate/shred butter with a cheese grater (or cut very finely into as small cubes as you can)
- On flat dough, spread about half of your cold, shredded butter (or very finely cubed) over top.
- Fold in half and roll out flat again. Repeat same process over top with butter.
- Fold over again, roll flat again.
- Since this is a double batch, cut approximately in half. Fold into thirds, wrap in plastic wrap and keep in fridge for at least 30-60 minutes before using.
Most recipes have you folding and rolling and folding and rolling again and again. Unless you're making something with super fine pastry required, you can save yourself about an hour but doing it my way.
Baking
- Preheat oven to 425°F/218°C.
- Unfold pastry from fridge and in whatever shapes you like, place on baking sheet. Brush with melted butter.
- Bake 15-20 minutes, until pastry is baked all the way through, becomes fluffy (or puffy, as per the name) and top is nicely golden brown.
Notes
Bread or Pizza more your dough?
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
I absolutely love Chicago deep dish pizza… but I’m from Canada (not Chicago or Italy!) and need more tricks! Any family secrets? Any stories?
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