Puff Pastry-Off to a Good Start

Puff Pastry-Off to a Good Start

Maybe you've never wondered about the origins of Puff Pastry but I have.  I actually googled it and found that there is folk lore and even a link that discusses it.

https://bitterbutter.org/2017/11/14/who-really-invented-puff-pastry/

In spite of the myths, how many of us have 'accidentally' made puff pastry.  I'm a frugal baker.  If I put the time into making a crust, I don't leave scraps.  I throw them into the refrigerator until the next day if I'm lazy and then re-roll them and cut them into shapes or sprinkle with cinnamon or do something to ensure that every buttery morsel is consumed.   When you roll, re-roll and fold these chilled scraps, you're bound to get an accidental puffing of the pastry every once in a while.   This happens because re-chilled butter gets smashed between layers of flour and water.  When the water turns into steam during baking, it pushes that butter layer up and creates that flake.  Getting more layers means getting more flakes.

So if you're going to try to find the origins of this wonderful creation, I suspect every one of us could find a descendant who put flour, water and butter together and....voila....puff pastry.

Pastry chefs have perfected the art of getting a ridiculous number of layers of flake.  They have even created complex cooking terms to reference both the dough and the butter brick.  In spite of that, it's really just a combination of butter, water and flour that is rolled and re-rolled.

I'm not going to go into the chemistry of the cooking.  I'm just a practical cook who likes to experiment.  I've played around with puff pastry from other recipe books but I'm on my first journey to create a 'Rustic Spinach Pie' from the Italian cookbook....Scuola di Cucina.  The first ingredient in this Torta (Pie) is Puff Pastry so I'm diving in.  The Puff Pastry recipe in the Scuola di Cucina cookbook is similar to others I've made so I have to be careful not to miss any subtleties that takes me off course.

I'll show you pictures of each step in the process so that you can see what it looks like from a non-professional cook and non-professional photographer's perspective.  I'm juggling doughy hands with my phone camera.  This is as real as it gets.

According to the translation of the Italian for this recipe....."Puff pastry is a mixture of flour and water to which butter is added in the same quantity as the flour." For a pound of puff pastry, you need 250 grams of flour (1.75 cups) and 250 grams of butter (1 cup plus 1.5 tablespoons).

So...you can call it an artery blocker, a fat pill or a widow maker.  However, I consider it to be one of the most fabulous accidental discoveries in human history in spite of all that.

Every moderately serious cook should make it at least once...just to say they've done it.  I guarantee that it's a whole lot easier than it sounds and tastes a whole lot better than ones purchased from a grocery store made out of cheaper fats.

In the interest of being both a practical cook and someone who hates to make a complete mess, I can give you some tips before you jump in. 

• Read the daggone instructions before you start so you can prepare your work surface and tools.  If you can get everything within an arm's length, you can avoid that messy opening and closing of cupboards with gooey hands as you're mixing dough. Also...when it says to place the dough in a piece of plastic wrap, it makes it a lot easier to actually have that plastic wrap laid out and ready.  
• If you don't own a gram/ounce conversion scale, I'd recommend it.  However, I've done my best with conversions.  You'll have to eyeball .4 cups vs a 1/2 cup measure.  When you do this often enough, you'll probably want the scale...which is why I bought it a long time ago.  
• A lot of pasta and dough recipes talk about dumping flour on the table and going at it.  I actually use a stainless steel bowl to minimize the mess and clean-up.  It seems to work fine most of the time.   Otherwise, I feel like I'm finding or cleaning up dried dough for days.

Here's the step by step recipe I translated.  I added lots of photos in the hope that it will save you some of the pain of looking up other videos and 'how to' sites on the internet. 

PUFF PASTRY

Ingredients for 1 pound of Puff Pastry:

• 250 grams of butter (1 cup plus 1.5 tablespoons of butter)
• 250 grams of flour (approximately 1.75 cups of all purpose flour)
• Scant 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• .4 cup of cold water (note the decimal!).....96 grams

Instructions:

1. Cut the butter into small pieces directly out of the fridge (first photo below).  Add 1/4 of the flour (this is about .6 cup of flour...again, note the decimal point).  Using your fingertips, rub the butter and flour together (second photo below) until you get a clay-like molding butter (third photo below).  It will be tempting to keep playing with your food but stop when the butter is incorporated.  Then pat the butter into a rectangular brick (fourth photo below).  Wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Take the rest of the flour and the scant 1/4 teaspoon of salt and mix them together in a stainless steel bowl.  Alternatively, if you want to mess up another tool, you can use a sifter.  The goal is to just distribute the salt evenly.  One part of the recipe also suggests that you can dilute the salt in the water before adding the water.  I didn't do this but it sounds like a good plan if you really want to distribute it evenly.  Make a well in the middle of the flour and slowly add the cold water.  Play with your food again by using your fingers to start to mix this up (first photo below).  Just swirl the water around the well and pick up more and more flour until you have a clump of dough.  Once you've incorporated all the flour, you can start to knead the dough until it gets relatively smooth (second photo below)  Wrap in plastic and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
   
   
3. After 30 minutes in the fridge, unwrap the dough.  Lightly flour your work surface and roll it out to a little less than .5 inch thickness.  Try to make the dough 3 times longer than it is wide.  Unwrap the butter brick and put it in the center of the rectangle (first photo below).  Flip the top and bottom portions of the pastry up over the brick (second photo below).  You want to try to have the width of the rectangle close to the same width of the butter brick.  Use your rolling pin to gently pound the encased butter (third photo below).  If you take out too much aggression on this poor pastry, the butter will explode out of the sides instead of getting evenly distributed.  When it's softened enough to roll, roll it out to a 5 x 15 inch rectangle or 3 times longer than wider and a little less than 1/2 inch thick (fourth photo below).  Mold the sides of the rectangle with your fingers to get it as even as possible and then refold the rectangle into threes(fifth photo below).  This is called the first 'turn' of the dough.  Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 15 minutes. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Unwrap the chilled dough and lightly dust with flour.  Roll it out again into roughly a 15x5 inch rectangle and refold into thirds.  Make two  thumbprints on the surface of the dough  to represent that you have just completed 2 'turns' of the dough.  Wrap in plastic, refrigerate for 15 minutes and repeat the process for a total of 6 turns.   You can see that the imprint of my finger did not spring back.  This is what you want.  When the dough is too elastic, it will be too springy.  You can avoid this by not overworking the dough.  This shouldn't happen.  It doesn't take too much work to roll this nice pliable dough into a rectangle.  
   
5. So here is the math on the layers.  You started with 3 layers (bottom layer of dough, butter and top layer of dough).  You folded this three times and rolled it out.  This created 9 layers.  On turn #2, you now have 27 layers (9 layers times 3 folds). At turn #3, you have 81 layers (27 layers times 3 folds, turn #4 results in 243, turn #5 results in 729 and finally by turn #6 you have 2187 layers of microscopic buttery goodness.    You can now see why it's important to keep track and not miss a 'turn'.  Going beyond 6 turns is an experiment begging to happen but I'm not willing to take the chance this time.
6. And that's it.  By the time you do this 6 times, you are ready to use the pastry in any recipe or freeze it to be used at a later date....just thaw in the fridge for a few hours.  

This pastry appears in multiple recipes in the cookbook I'm trying to translate so it's a great leaping off recipe.  

I haven't actually baked it yet but will be making a Rustic Spinach Torta (pie) this week to see if I flip the page on this recipe in success or declare it as a flop.  I'll update this post to include the finished product.  Fingers crossed.

Buono Mangiata
Good Eating!