Quick Puff Pastry
I have always wanted to try and make my own puff pastry, but the traditional method kind of made me nervous. Making a big slab of butter? I wasn’t sure if I could do it properly, and that is a LOT of butter to waste if it didn’t work out right. When I came across another method to make quick puff pastry I was hooked!
This was my first try at making this quick puff pastry, and it turned out perfect. I will definitely be making this in the future for all of my recipes that call for puff pastry. It is much cheaper than the frozen variety, and this can be made in an hour!
Assemble your ingredients and start by cutting up the cold butter into small cubes.
Coat the butter in flour, and then put the flour and butter into the food processor. Pulse 3-5 times, or until the butter is about half the size of the cubes you cut up. Dump in the water, and pulse 4 more times.
Dump the whole thing out onto a lightly floured surface.
Use your hands and form the big mess into a long rectangle. Fold one third of it over towards the center (use a bench scraper or a big spatula), then fold the other half over the top of that. Turn the whole mess 90 degrees and do it all over again. Do this for a total of 4 turns. Wrap it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for 45 minutes to an hour.
After it is chilled, using a rolling pin shape the dough into a rectangle, roll out into a rectangle and repeat the folding process 3 more times.
When you want to use the dough, roll out to about ¼ – ⅓ inch thick, cut out to your desired shape, and bake at 400 degrees until golden brown. The secret to really puffy puff pastry is a HOT oven, and cold dough.
- 2 cups flour
- 3 ¼ sticks butter
- ½ cup cold water
- Cut up butter into small cubes. Coat in flour and put it and the rest of the flour into the food processor. Pulse 3-5 times.
- Add the water and pulse 3 more times.
- Dump out onto a lightly floured surface. Shape with your hands into a rectangle. Fold over in thirds, like a business letter. Turn 90 degrees and do another fold. Repeat two more times for a total of 4 turns. Chill for 45 minutes to an hour.
- Remove from fridge and place on lightly floured surface. Using a rolling pin this time, roll out into a rectangle and do three more turns folding over in thirds, turning 90 degrees, and repeating the process.
- After the 7th turn, roll out to about ½ inch in thickness, cut out to desired shapes, and use according to your favorite recipe directions!
Nice thing about puff pastry is you can use any shape cutter you desire, or essentially mold the pastry into any design. Turnovers, bowl, croissants, little cups and the like. Here we kept it easy and used a flower shaped cookie cutter to make nice little bit sized treats. You can bake your pastry with any ingredients or filling you wish. A few example are slicing some apple to put on top …..
You can add extra layers on top of the apple to encase the apples inside the puff as it bakes. Or you can add a filling, like strawberry filling and whip creme for a super sweet treat!
Just some ideas to play with, but it’s fun to brainstorm and come up with other ideas besides dessert to use the pastry for .. like adding broccoli and cheddar or spinach and feta cheese for an appetizer dish. The options are endless!
Enjoy!
~Leanne♥
English
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