The Exquisite Joy of Puff Pastry
Ahhh puff pastry! Few things are tastier than a well made puff pastry. That sweet butter taste combined with an exquisite flakiness. Being able the make even a moderately good puff pastry will then open the door to culinary possibilities.
Puff Pastry Recipe
NUMBER ONE key to a good puff pastry is the butter. Go all out here and find the best unsalted butter you can get your hands on, no cost spared. If you are lucky enough to have a store that carries the Plugra brand European Style butter, it is damn tasty and usually sells at a very reasonable price for the 1 lb. brick. Smart & Final carries it in our area (Trader Joes used to 🙁 ) at an exceptional under $3 price.
How to Make Puff Pastry
The start to finish time is a bit long, 3 + hours, but most of that time is chill time in between folds. As long as you aren’t leaving the house for a while, you can get plenty of other dishes made, or chores done, or football games watched while making the magic dragon pastry. Pay attention to the details while making this. A little mistake will magnify later.
Also, when using puff pastry in recipes, keep in mind that their dough may be meant to rise differently than this one. This recipe should rise about 4 times it’s rolled out thickness, but even that will change with how old the dough is or how well it is made.
The dough and formed-ready-to-bake pastries keep very well in the freezer, but not so much in the fridge. This recipe is based off of “The Professional Pastry Chef” by Bo Friberg, we’ve just tweaked a couple of the techniques to what we’ve found to be easier for us.
P.S. If you are going to venture into pastry making, I seriously suggest you start baking by weight if you aren’t already. Get a kitchen scale, especially one that weighs in grams. Pastries are as much science as art and you need to be as accurate as possible. So start weighing out ingredients and have less recipe missteps. After you get used to baking this way, you will love it.
-Todd
Step by Step Recipe Gallery
Blend butter & flour for butter block
form into 6″x6″ square
make dough. sift flour onto worksurface
pinch butter into flour
make a well and add water
form into a ball
slash the top pull stretch into a square
diagonally place butter block on dough square
wrap butter block with dough and pinch seams closed
roll and fold. What is puff pastry? here’s a good comparison explanation between puff pastry and pie dough.
Puff Pastry Recipe
Ingredients
Butter Block Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups (510g) cold unsalted Butter
- 2 teaspoons (10ml) Lemon Juice
- pinch Salt
- 1 cup (130g) Bread Flour
Dough Ingredients
- 3 cups (410g) Bread Flour, approximately
- 1/4 cup (556g) soft unsalted Butter
- 2 teaspoons Salt
- 1 cup (240ml) cold Water
Instructions
- Make Butter Block: In mixer w/ paddle attachment, work butter lemon juice, salt, and flour into a smooth paste.
- On a sheet of wax paper, roughly form an approx. 6" square with the butter block mixture. Lay another piece of wax paper on top and smooth out the square & straighten the sides. Peel back each wax paper sheet & re-lay as it wrinkles to keep a smooth, even surface. After block's thickness & sides are even, refrigerate until firm.
- Make the dough: Sift flour onto your work surface (preferably something chilly like granite or marble slab) Pinch butter into chunks and place on top of flour. Continue pinching butter into flour until it resembles coarse crumbs.
- Shape into a mound, then make a well in the center of the mound. Add the salt & cold water into the well, then with a fork, use a whisking motion to gradually incorporate the well's sides into the water. When it starts to form a solid mass, finish incorporating the flour by kneading. Incorporate just until it is still sticky and has a rough texture. Adjust the water & flour as needed. Try to knead as little as possible. Puff pastry likes lazy kneaders.
- Form dough into a ball, remember-knead as little as possible. Flatten the ball a bit, then cut a cross halfway through the dough. Wrap it up & let rest in fridge for 30 minutes.
- You'll want the Butter Block to have approximately the same consistency as the Dough, after the dough is rested. You don't want the butter rock hard, but not mushy soft, either. A dough that is softer than the butter will stretch while the butter doesn't. If the butter is softer than the dough, it will be pushed out the sides. Either create difficulties to some degree. You may have to adjust chill/resting times for either dough or butter block so they are about the same. Kitchen temp., how long it took to make the dough, fridge temp., all affect the consistency of the Butter Block & Dough. Figure out adjustments to make so they'll work together homogeneously. It may take a time or two, but you'll get the hang of it. While everything is chilling, get to work. Clean that kitchen up. Then relax & get ready to assemble.
- Assembly: Pull the corners of the cuts out of the dough ball to make a square shape. Roll the dough out to a square slightly thicker in the center than on the sides, and slightly larger than the butter block.
- Place the butter block diagonally on the dough square, so that the butter corners are pointed at the middle of the dough sides. Fold the uncovered dough corners over the butter block to completely envelop the butter. Pinch the seams tightly together to seal in the butter.
- Dust your work surface with flour, and roll the dough into a rectangle about 1/2" thick. Remember to keep dusting with flour whenever needed to keep the dough from sticking & tearing the layers.
- Size up your rectangle visually into 3. Fold one third over the middle, then fold the opposite third over. Just like a tri-fold brochure. Try to have everything as even as possible. All the edges should match fairly closely. Put on a plate, cover, and refrigerate for about 30 minutes. Relax, read the paper, check email, whatever you like.
- Roll out to 1/2" thick and repeat the fold. Don't forget to flour as you roll. Plate, cover, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Repeat this for a total five roll & folds.
- After the last fold, roll the rectangle out to about 3/4". If it is difficult, put dough in the fridge for a bit to relax the gluten. If using immediately, cover, rest in fridge for about 30 minutes, then use as needed. If it's for later, cut into sections big enough but that still fit easily in your freezer (usually just in half), layer with wax paper between sections, freezer bag it, & store until needed.
Great article. I have been making puff pastry for about 15 years based on a special family recipe my grandmother taught me(it has tremendous sentimental value). I’ve played around with a lot of variations on this recipe and the following really work well:
– this is not a summer recipe. the dough and butter must remain cool. Perfect temperature is 67-70 Degrees F. The butter and dough of similar consistency is an excellent tip! I use a cool, marble slab. My butter block is just butter, I’ve never tried the mixed ingredients – In Julia Child’s French Cooking book she uses just butter. Try it without as the recipe is complicated enough already. It’s about how the dough feels as you role it out. Letting the dough rest is really important. Don’t be afraid to dust with flour as you’re rolling out the dough. Also, sneak in more butter – I have tried 1.5 lbs butter for this much dough. It’s crazy tasting.
A nice finish is to roll out the dough in a bed of berry sugar, and finish the pastries under the broiler for 1-2 minutes. You get a beautiful caramel finish which really compliments the buttery pastry. beware though as I have burned many a batch at this point due to lack of attention.
Cheers all.
Finally, I am always amazed when it rises, it’s as close to a miracle as I am willing to admit exists.
Oh my goodness! I just followed your recipie to make my first puff pastry ever, and i”m in heaven! Thanks so much for taking the time to create such an easy to follow recipie with beautiful pictures! I can’t wait for my husband to get home from work so he can try it!
After reading this wonderful post of yours, I wonder if you ever made “Banh Pate Choud”?! If you do, please, please post a recipe!
We have. Actually just ate some for breakfast this am (bought them at a Viet bakery, we hit the ground running this morning) and we were just thinking that is another post we need to get to. Don’t know when we will have time in the immediate future, but it is on the short list.
Great recipe! thanks
Thanks for the wonderful tips! I decided to make the pastry again and this time it was so much better and delicious. I must have done something wrong along the way earlier. It’s kinda like when I’m making bread. I don’t have a bread machine or a mixer so I have to do everything by hand and sometimes it turns out and sometimes it doesn’t. I realized I made a big mistake on the last roll and fold, I didn’t roll it out thin enough. Instead I kept it on the thicker side and I believe that’s what caused it to be too greasy and also the thickness probably didn’t allow it to rise and puff up correctly. Of course I had already cut up the pastry dough by then and the damage was already done. So after the second one I made sure to roll it out thin. By the way, I wanted it to be a savory pastry and made a crabmeat and gruyere and herb mixture for the filling. My company had a small cooking contest and I decided to make a savory puff pastry. I didn’t win boo hoo but oh well. None of us got to explain to the judges about it so they probably think my appetizer was a store bought thing because someone was standing in front of my dish and asked someone if it was homemade and we’re not allowed to tell people our dish because it was going to be biased. Do people not realize there are folks out there that actually made everything from scratch? I can’t believe how many people these days make a meal out of a box. If they only knew how long I slaved in the kitchen for! Anyway I thought my dish was delicious and it looked fantastic!
Lesson learn, when making pastry, follow instructions to the T ! lol. 🙂
Thanks!
I made the puff pastry this weekend and for some reason, it’s not pretty and soft and fluffy like yours. Mine came out really buttery and greasy. There were layers but very buttery and somewhat brittle. Maybe I used to much flour when rolling the pastry. Or it could be I left the butter block and the dough too long in the fridge (almost an entire day) unassembled. By the time I took it out to assemble it was hard like I rock and I took it out for about 1-2 hours before it became a little softer to work with. Anyway, I’ll try again. I’m so sad it didn’t come out like yours but I’ll try again.
So sorry it didn’t turn out well for you. From what you’ve described it sounds like the problem lies in the timing of assembling the dough. The timing really is crucial so that both the butter block and dough ball are at compatible consistencies. What creates a good puff are the hundreds to thousands (depending on how many single folds you do) of layers of butter and dough that are formed and if the dough and butter block don’t match up it can break down those layers. Another problem may have been oven temp. Make sure your oven was hot enough. The butter layers need quick, hot heat to more or less evaporate and create the puff. Glad you aren’t giving up. There are so many things which the first time I’ve tried them I’ve failed, but after developing a better understanding through experience I’ve come to enjoy and excel at making them. – Todd
Kari – Good luck. Hopefully the kitchen won’t be too hot for your first time. The hotter the kitchen, the quicker you have to work.
Darina – Hope you give it a shot. It’s so tasty when you make it yourself.
The Duo Dishes – You’re too cute in your honesty. I like that. I only make 1 batch at a time unless we have an intended purpose for it, because it actually goes quite far. But we also always try to have a batch stashed in the freezer at all times. An easy knock out dessert… Puff pasty topped with pastry cream, fresh berries, and a swish of powdered sugar.
Simone – Hope someday you give it a try. Thanks for the compliments.
Susan – You are too sweet. Good luck on your pastry learnings.
Tuty – Pate choud are one of our favorites. If we aren’t making them we are always buying them in Little Saigon. And once you start making your own there is so much to play with. I’m not so sure I’m patient, as I am stubborn. I just have to figure some things up and won’t let it go until I do.
Jen – I humbly bow to your praise. You and your DB clan kick some serious pastry ass. Some of you are out of my league, though. You might have noticed the lopsided rising… sloppy egg washing. I still have to fine tune more before I’m at your level. Ounces and cups drives me nuts sometimes. At least converting keeps my math up.
Miakoda – Jumping in with both feet, well done! It’s such a great feeling, huh.
Lori Lynn – Thank you very much.
Murasaki – You’re most welcome. I hope you do make the puff pastry. So many delicious things to do with it.
Sopheavy – Bread can be a very tricky beast. You are dealing with a live organism and it takes a while to understand. I still don’t as much as I would like to. Puff pastry is more about technique. Try to understand each step as well as you can before you begin, then pay attention to the details and hopefully it will turn out wonderful.
Thanks for visiting everyone. For those who haven’t tried making puff pastry yet and are wanting to, give it a try. It isn’t as hard as what it might seem. And the rewards are incredible. Todd.
Thanks for the step by step tip. It looks so yummy. I’m always nervous making something so delicate like this. The last couple times I made bread….it was horrible lol. so lets see if i have luck with puff pastry.
Thank you for this. This is absolutely great…. I might even try making it. 🙂
Kudos to you. My baking patience is way too short. But I really appreciate what others can do. Photos lovely, as usual.
LL
This is almost the first thing I attempted when I started cooking/baking and I remember I was so thrilled. People would ask me ‘You MADE this?’ I find it a bit surprising myself that I didn’t start with cakes or bread or something a bit easier. Nice step by steps 🙂
*Applause* Todd, you are good enough to take on the Daring Bakers! 🙂 Beautifully executed. I can only imagine how perfectly fluffy and flaky your pastry came out. When the DBs did this we made Danish Braids with the dough – and I filled mine with BBQ pulled pork. For me, puff pastry is perfect with the savories. And amen on the weighing of ingredients. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had commenters tell me, “In the US, we use ounces and cups.” The hell? 😉 xxoo
Todd,
Patience must be your virtue 😉
Andrea Nguyen’s Pate Chaud is yummy… my whole family loves it albeit with a purchased puff pastry.
BBQ pork/Char Siu filling (like the one in the dim sum house) is another favorite of mine. Curry beef puff…. chicken with mushroom ragout… guava and farmers cheese (Caribbean & Mexican thing)…and the list goes on.
Geez..I’ve just finally gotten a firm grip on pie dough (oh, the years fighting that. Oy!). Heck..I might as well go all the way and give this a go, too. Your calm yet explicit instructions and pic’s make it look much more doable for a non professional. Thanks for this!
Love the photos, but I am not sure if I ever will be making puff pastry any time soon. I am not a real baking star as I have proven myself time and again, so this just is a little bit too daunting for me! Would love to be able to make it though…
Honestly…we’re never going to do this! But it’s awesome to read about it. Definitely a labor intensive but rewarding treat. Hopefully you made at least 5 batches, so you’ll have it on hand anytime.