Puff pastry - From Scratch!

April 17, 2012


For Easter I decided to make an appetizer of brie cheese baked in a puff pastry. I had done it once before and it was a hit, but I had just used store bought puff pastry. 

This time I did not want to use the store bought pastry. Why? Well let's look at the ingredients:


UNBLEACHED ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR [FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE (VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), FOLIC ACID], WATER, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED VEGETABLE SHORTENING (SOYBEAN AND COTTONSEED OILS COLORED WITH BETA CAROTENE) CONTAINS 2 PERCENT OR LESS OF: SALT, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, WHEAT GLUTEN, DISTILLED MONOGLYCERIDES (FROM HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL) AND SOY LECITHIN.
In my Fanny Farmer cookbook I found a recipe or homemade puff pastry that did not seem to difficult. There were only...
4 ingredients!

1 stick butter - cut in three slices and chilled
3/4 cup flour - sifted
1/4 tsp salt 
1/4 cup ice water

I included many pictures in this post. It was actually much easier than I expected. It does take some time, but you can leave the dough and come back later many times. 

 Sift the flour.
 Add the salt and the water and mix them together with a fork.









Form the dough into a ball. Place on a floured cutting board or other surface.
Place dough under bowl and let rest for about 5 minutes.








Knead the dough for five minutes.









 Roll out the get a rectangle ~ 11 by 6 inches.
Place the butter on one end of the rolled dough.
 Fold the dough over.
Pinch the edges together. Wrap in fol and place in the refrigerator to chill  at least 30 minutes. (This is one step where you can chill it longer, so of you don't have a lot of time you can do the next steps later.)
 Take chilled dough out of fridge. Place it on a floured surface with the fold on the left side and pound down with a roller.
Roll the dough out to a rectangle 18 by 6 inches. Lift occasionally to re-flour the surface so it does not stick.








Fold the dough into thirds. Turn it clockwise one rotation so the fold is not facing you.


Roll out as before into an 18 by 6 inch rectangle and then refold. This completes 2 times. Refold and roll until you have done a total of 6 times. The dough needs to stay cold, so you can rechill after each 2 "roll refolds." (This is another time where you can go do other things and come back later to roll and fold.)




Once you have done your 6 "roll and refolds" you can roll out your dough to the shape you would like, chill if it warmed up too much and then bake. Cut the edges with a sharp knife so that the layers of pastry can separate.

I baked my pastry at 400 degrees for 23 minutes. I think I could have baked it a bit longer to get a browner color. I also could have rolled it a bit thinner. It was just slightly too doughy.