A type of flaky, airy pastry known as puff pastry is created by sandwiching layers of dough with butter. To make many layers, the dough is flattened out and repeatedly folded. The dough is then flattened out and cut into shapes after being chilled for several hours or overnight. In delicacies like pies and pastries, puff pastry is frequently utilized. Moreover, it can be used to prepare savory foods like quiche or chicken pot pie. Puff pastry is frequently more expensive than other forms of pastry because it takes longer to prepare and needs specialized equipment.
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Puff Pastry And Its Uses
As puff pastry doesn’t contain sugar, it is the ideal vehicle for a variety of savory and sweet dishes, including cheese, fruit, and meats. It must be encircled by a filling that will keep it together while baking because it is so thin.
It is frequently used for turnovers, pies, tarts, and pies. Moreover, puff pastry can be used to prepare entrees like beef wellington or snacks like pigs in a blanket. There are numerous benefits to folding puff pastry. The dough can be used for a number of recipes and is simple to deal with. Dough for puff pastry can be prepared in advance and frozen for later use.
A versatile dough, puff pastry can be used for both savory and sweet recipes.
Homemade Puff Pastry
To say the least, making puff pastry is a complicated procedure. Making a soft butter block and wrapping it in a slender dough envelope are the first steps. After that, this butter package is rolled out, folded like a letter, and then rerolled. Technically referred to as “turns,” this rolling and folding procedure is repeated six times. By the time it is done, the dough has been divided into thousands of extremely thin layers of dough and thousands of very thin layers of butter. The layers will inflate up into the familiar crispy, pillowy pastry clouds during baking because to the steam in the butter.
Puff pastry takes a long time to prepare since it is essential to keep the dough and butter refrigerated during the entire procedure. Butter absorbs into the layers of dough if it is too heated. It breaks and slashes the dough when it’s too cold (which is equally undesirable). The pastry is cooled for 30 minutes in between each turn or two to keep it in the ideal middle zone.
Despite this, there is not much hands-on time. Set a timer to alert you when the dough is ready for another turn if you’re at home, then go about your business. The pastry can be used immediately or frozen once it is created, just like store-bought pastry.
How To Make Puff Pastry
Ingredients
- Cold Salted Butter Cut Into Cubes (Not Margarine)
- Cold Water
- Salt
- All-purpose Flour
How To Do It
- Put part of the butter cubes and the flour in the food processor. Till the butter is incorporated into the dough, pulse. Just a few more pulses are performed after adding the remaining butter. The butter is mixed into the flour evenly by adding it in small portions.
- When the dough starts to form a ball, add the cold water and pulse a few more times. It’s crucial to stop over-processing the dough at this stage; this should only require four to five more pulses.
- Your dough will now have small pieces of butter throughout, but don’t worry—this is what gives the dough its flaky texture. Move the dough to a surface that has been lightly dusted with flour. One thing I saw is that you must always ensure that your surface is lightly dusted with flour before gently forming a compact ball.
- Roll the dough into a rectangle that measures about 12 by 18 inches after lightly flouring your rolling pin.
- Fold the rectangle in half, then in half again, just like you would an envelope, to create all the flaky layers.
- It should be folded once more, divided in half, wrapped in plastic wrap, and chilled for one to two hours. Your puff pastry dough is prepared for use once it has chilled.
Creating Puff Pastry: A Trial & Error
A type of pastry known as puff pastry is made from dough that has been stacked with butter or another sort of fat. After that, the dough is stretched out and folded several times to make multiple layers. The butter or fat in the dough produces steam during baking, which makes the dough to puff up and become flaky and light.
Due to the several times the dough must be rolled out and folded, puff pastry is challenging to create. This procedure can take a long time and calls for a lot of patience. The technique can be made considerably more difficult by the requirement to cool the dough between each stage.
Storebought Puff Pastry
Indeed, store-bought dough is quite tasty. We want puff pastry to be a tasty, manageable dough that bakes up to be a light, flaky vehicle for a variety of fillings, from savory to sweet. On those nights when you just have a few hours before your friends arrive at the door, we want to be able to easily grab it.
Both frozen and refrigerated store-bought puff pastry succeed on all of these counts. Famous brands are: Dufour for its creamy butter flavor and Pepperidge Farm, which they both describe as flaky and reasonably priced. For quality, flavor, and texture, both products received good marks. When you can find it, The Kitchn also advises stocking up on Trader Joe’s frozen puff pastry because it is produced with genuine butter. Yum!
