Homemade Puff Pastry
This is the recipe and step by step process of making a small batch laminated puff pastry. Feel free to multiply the recipe for a bigger batch.
About the puff
A bit about folding
You can give either book folds or letter folds to your dough to create the layers. It is completely up to you. A book fold multiplies layers by 4 whereas a letter fold multiplies layers by 3. For puff pastry the more layers the better. But always stop at 7. Way too many layers will stretch the butter layer a little too much making it disappear.
Place flour, salt, lemon juice(optional) and cold butter in a bowl. Rub the butter into flour (or use a food processor)
Lemon juice (or any acid) will help prevent too much gluten development so the pastry will be flaky not chewy
Add water and mix until a dough is developed. If the dough is too dry add 1-2 tbsp. of more water. the dough would be fairly stiff but malleable.
Kneed this dough until it is fairly smooth. Make sure no lumps, flour is present. Does not have to be super smooth.
Wrap and chill the dough for at least 30 minutes (up to a day)
Make a butter block by pounding about a 100g (stick of butter) until you get a 1/4 inch thick slab. Size roughly 4" by 6".
Wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or until hardened.
When you are ready to laminate, bring the butter out and let it sit for 5 minutes until a little soft to the touch.
Then bring the dough out and roll it out on a floured surface to twice the size of the butter block. Check the image.Then lock the butter block inside the dough and seal the edges.
Roll out and do a book/letter fold
How a letter fold looks like.
Wrap and place this in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Then repeat folding(either book or letter or a mix), resting in-between folds
Perform at least 3-4 folds (up to a 7) for a flakier pastry.
eg:
3 book folds and 2 letter folds
2 book folds and 2 letter folds
3 book folds and 1 letter fold
4 book folds
5 letter folds
Once done with lamination(folding) wrap and chill the dough for about 4 hour (or even overnight). After resting roll out to desired width and length depending on the recipe you are going to use the puff for. If you are freezing, roll out to a 2mm thick sheet, wrap in parchment/cling film and freeze.
Frozen puff sheets should be thawed in the fridge before being used. Usually, placing the frozen puff in the fridge overnight will be sufficient.
Some of the recipes you can try using this puff pastry sheet.
Ingredients
Method
- 1
Measure all the ingredients for the dough into a bowl and mix. You can use a food processor or a stand mixer, but this is a small dough so by hands is easier for me
- 2
Once everything comes together, bring the dough on to a floured surface and start to knead. Use the extra 2 tbsp. water if the dough is too dry or stiff
- 3
Knead until you get a smooth dough (for about 2-3 minutes, check the picture above)
- 4
Wrap the dough with a piece of plastic and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Or overnight
- 5
Make the butter slab in the meantime
- 6
Let the butter sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes
- 7
Place the cold butter in between two parchment papers and use a rolling pin to flatten it into roughly a 6" by 4" rectangle (roughly about 3/4 cm thickness) check the picture above (size doesn't have to be exact)
- 8
Wrap and chill the butter block for about 15 minutes at least or until hardened
- 9
To make the puff, roll out the dough on a floured surface, into a rectangle
- 10
This rectangle should be twice the size of the butter block (check images above)
- 11
Place the butter block on the rolled out dough and enclose tightly
- 12
Seal all three sides so the butter won't escape
- 13
Now place the shortest side (width) facing you and roll out, away from you (check images)
- 14
Once it get to a reasonable size (dough thickness of 3/4 cm roughly) stop rolling and give a book/letter fold
- 15
Wrap and chill the dough and repeat the process above to give more folds
- 16
Give at least 4 folds chilling the dough in-between every fold
- 17
You can perform up to 5-7 folds if time permits. The more layers, the flakier the puff will be
- 18
Once final fold is done wrap and chill for at least 3-4 hours or overnight
- 19
Once rested, this laminated dough can be rolled out to about 2mm thickness and used in any recipe that calls for puff
- 20
Rolled out, sheet can be wrapped and frozen too
- 21
Make sure to thaw the frozen sheets overnight in the fridge before using
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