Puff Pastry

 This is part 1 of what I hope will be a very yummy recipe.

I have never made puff pastry before, but the recipe that will be coming after this calls for it and the stores near me did not have any in stock. So I said, guess I'll be making that!

I used the recipe from The Kitchn to make this. It starts off simple enough, mix flour and salt in a bowl then turn it onto a mat or work surface. Then you add in tablespoons of cold water and mix/fluff the flour so that the water gets incorporated.

Now here's where my confusion came in. The recipe calls for 2/3 cup of ice water but the instructions say to add water 1 tablespoon at a time until it comes together into a shaggy dough. So that's what I did... But I didn't use all of the water. Was I supposed to?

So following the instructions, once the dough got to a stage where it could be pressed together, I wrapped it in plastic and stuck it in the fridge.

The next step is to prepare your butter, where basically you pound the butter with the rolling pin with some flour. Now again, I kept adding more flour as needed but I was not sure if that's what I was supposed to do. I would say learn from my mistakes but I don't know if they were mistakes yet. We will find out tomorrow.

So you have your butter and you're rolling it and flattening it with the flour until it's pliable and soft. Stick that in the fridge.

Now. Now is when you take out both the dough and the butter. You're supposed to roll out the dough and stick the butter on top and fold the dough over the butter. But my dough was too shaggy to withstand all of that folding and rolling. So I went ahead and added in most of the water I had left over until the dough felt like how a dough should feel to me. It was perhaps a little stickier than I was planning but I figured if I didn't add more water in then it would not roll out, it would just crumble. Right? Are you with me?

This next part is easy. You roll out the dough with the butter inside and fold it over itself and roll again then chill then roll and fold and roll and fold and chill. Then roll and fold and roll and fold and chill. And that's it! Now it is resting safely in my fridge for tomorrow.

Isn't this such a mystery? Who knows what I will be making with this puff pastry! Put your guess in the comments down below!

Recipe (from The Kitchn):

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2/3 cup ice water

8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold

1. Mix together flour and salt in a bowl. Turn on to work surface in a pile and make a trough in the center.

2. Sprinkle 1 tbsp of water in the trough and fluff dough with your fingers, keeping fingers loose and using a scraping motion. Gather flour back into a mound and create another trough. Add another tablespoon of water and repeat fluffing procedure. Repeat with water as needed until dough forms large clumps and holds together when pressed.

3. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.

4. Cut butter into a few large pieces, sprinkle with flour. Begin pounding and flattening butter with rolling pin to soften it. Sprinkle more flour as needed. Pound butter flat then use a pastry scraper or knife to gather butter into a mound. Continue adding flour and pounding/gathering butter until it becomes very pliable and does not break when you fold it over on itself.

5. Wrap butter in plastic in a 4-inch square shape and chill for 10 minutes.

6. Remove dough from fridge and roll into a 7-inch square.

7. Place butter square on top of dough at a 90 degree angle. Fold up corners of dough over the butter so they meet in the middle. Pinch to seal.

8. Flour work surface lightly and turn dough so that the seam side is down. Roll into a rectangle roughly 12 inches long by 6 inches wide. Fold top third down over middle, and bottom fold up over middle to make a square. 

9. Rotate folded dough 90 degrees. Roll out again into a rectangle and fold again.

10. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

11. Repeat rolling and folding dough two more times. It will be much more smooth and pliable at this point. Lightly dust with flour as needed.

12. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 30 more minutes.

13. Repeat rolling and folding two more times, for a total of 6 folds/turns. Dough should be completely smooth and easy to roll out.

14. Wrap in plastic and chill for final 60 minutes or overnight.

15. When ready to bake, preheat oven at 425 degrees. Roll out pastry dough to between 1/4 and 1/8 inches thick. Cut into the shape that you need and transfer to the pan or baking sheet.

16. Bake for 10 minutes at 425 degrees. Lower oven temperature to 375 and continue baking until dry, crisp, and deep golden-brown.

Make sure to check back soon for my next post where I will bake the dough! If this does not turn out well I will still keep this post up most likely but will add my thoughts in the next one. Stay tuned!