Making puff pastry can seem scary to some. Until I followed a weekend puff pastry-croissants and brioche class, I had never tried. In the end, it is quite simple, there are a few steps and since there is no yeast (not like croissant dough) you can make the ball on day 1 and finish the rest on day 2!
A bit of background on methods used…
Now, you may see different types of method for doing puff pastry and be tempted to the quick one “Blitz method”, this is fine for a number of use but you need to know it will produce an uneven pastry. The one I will document here is the “French method”. The differences come from the way the butter is inserted into the dough. There are three main methods :
(1) SCOTCH or BLITZ. (2) ENGLISH. (3) FRENCH.
There are three different ways of adding the fat:
- The quickest way is the Scotch or Blitz method. It is suitable for making pastry for pies, sausage rolls and pasties. Flour, salt, cold water and dough fat are mixed together in a mixing bowl. Walnut-sized lumps of fat are then added to the bowl and are mixed in a little, to ensure large lumps of fat are left whole in the dough. The fat is distributed throughout the dough in flat discs, rather than a continuous sheet as with the other methods. As a result this pastry does not always rise evenly and so is not suitable for products that must look exceptionally good.
- In the English method the flour, salt, water and dough fat are mixed together. This dough is rolled into a long rectangular shape, three times as long as wide. Two-thirds of the dough is covered by dabs of butter. The third without butter is folded into the middle first then the other end is folded on top.
- The French method – The main feature of the French method is that a square layer of fat is wrapped in the basic dough. This dough is made by rubbing about 10% of the soft fat into the flour, then adding cold water and mixing well to make a clear dough. After testing it is rolled into a square, making each side half the distance between opposite corners of the dough. The fat is placed in the centre of the doughs in the diagram below and the corners folded into the centre so they meet and cover the join. The paste is then folded again.
I did not write the text above, it is from http://www.bakeinfo.co.nz/
And on the butter content…
The three main types of puff pastry are FULL,THREE-QUARTER and HALF. The difference between them being the total fat content:
- FULL puff contains flour and fat in equal ratio.
- THREE-QUARTER puff contains 75% of fat to each pound of flour.
- HALF contains 50% of the flour weight.
I will be giving you the half puff pastry, I find it buttery enough and good to work with.
Classic Puff Pastry (or half puff)
Ingredients:
- 300 g bakers bread flour
- 150 g water
- 30 g unsalted butter at room temperature
- 6 g of salt
- 3 g of lemon juice or white vinegar – used for colour development
- 3 g of malt, or honey – again used for colour development
- 250 g unsalted butter , chilled, for roll in.
It is important that you get the right flour. Sourcing bakers flour can be challenging. The supernmaket bakers flour often comes with additives, do not use those. Bulk health food / organic stores sell bakers flour, a few italian grocers also do (by 12.5 kg bag). In Sydney Southern Cross Supplies does wholesales (again by 12.5 kg bag).
Method:
If you have a Kitchen Aid or similar, it is time to get it out, use the dough hook. By hand works well too.
- Put together all of the ingredients EXCEPT the roll-in butter. Make a very rough mix and leave aside for 20 min, it is the hydratation process which will help the ingredients to mix well in the next phase.
- If using a Kitchen Aid, mix on low (number 2) for 4 minute – time it out! If doing it manually, mix the dough until you get a ball then place on the kitchen bench repetitively pushing the ball sideways away from you from left to right, bringing it back then pushing it sideways away from you from the right to the left. Do this until the structure becomes elastic enough to stretch when you pull on it. Don’t overdo it, we are not trying to reach the development that we would with a bread (i.e. not enough to stretch it so thinly you can see through).
- Wrap the ball in cell wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
- While it is refrigerating, prepare your butter. You will need to have a metal dough spatula or plastic one (I use either one or the other for that process). If you don’t have any, try using a large straight wooden spatula, it won’t be as easy but should work until you get one of the dough spatula, they are a couple dollars only at kitchen stores.
- Using a large knife, a chopping board and baking paper, cut slices of butter about 0.5 cm to 1 cm thick and place them on the baking paper next to each other like if to make a square jigsawpuzzle shape.
- Cover with another piece of baking paper.
- With a rolling pin, hammer (bang!) one side of the butter, this is called the plastering.
- Remove the baking paper and with the plastic dough spatula homogeneise the thickness and tidy the sides of the square. The butter you remove on a thicker part is used to fill in the thinner parts (i.e. q=the quantity of butter remains the same).
- Put back the baking paper, flip over, do the same.
- Give one more round of plastering: rolling pin bang! + Clean up the top and edges of the slab.
Note: steps 5 to 8 can be replaced by a slightly easier folding method: spread the dough in a long strip slightly wider than the width of your butter piece and twice the length. Place the butter in the lowe part of the rectangular and fold over the other part, gently squeeze the edges together.
5. Now, it is time to enclose the butter: Get you ball out of the fridge and place on a very lightly floured work bench. Cut from the top down, halfway along two lines as a cross.
6
. Putting your hand in the middle of the cross, holding one corner at the time, pull the corner towards you and open the ball: half of the dough will be left where it was (the lower half of the ball you did not cut through), half comes to you, shape it in the form of a square. Repeat with the other 3 corners.
7. With the rolling pin, adding flour underneath the pastry to prevent from sticking, expend you central section as a square the size of your slab of butter, then lay each wing very thin until you reach a square the same size than the central square.
Tip: extend one wing first halfway, then get onto the second one and so on until you go around, on the second round extend to full size.
Tip: don’t forget to add a tiny bit of flour to prevent sticking
8. Place you butter in the middle of the shape, fold back each wing at the time making sure you enclose the butter completely each time (top and sides), press slightly on the edges. Wrap in cell wrap, put on a tray and place in the fridge for 20 minutes.
The lamination is when you make the sheeting. Do a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 6 folds (or the fat will integrate the pastry dough and you will loose the sheeting) but no more than 2 folds at the time. Allow 20 minute rest minimum in the fridge (covered) between each set of folds.
9. Remove the
pastry from the fridge, place on a lightly floured work bench. Here we will roll the pastry in ONE direction only. Roll away from you towards the back of the bench until 3 times its own length, about 1 cm thick.
Tip: you may need to turn your pastry 180 degrees around to roll each end the same way, this is fine.
10. taking the end further away from you, fold in one third removing all excess flour, then fold in a second time until you come back to your initial square shape.
11. Now turn the pastry 90 degrees to your left, to have it as if you were going to open a book. Again (this is the second fold) roll away from you until 3 times its own length, about 1 cm thick. Fold back in three. Place on a tray, cover with cell wrap, rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.
12. Remove the pastry from the fridge, repeat steps 9 to 11.
13. As above. Now you have all of the folds done. Rest the dough 20 minutes at least before using it.
The puff pastry will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days and in the freezer for up to 3 month.