{"id":695,"date":"2012-05-21T02:23:00","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T06:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev6.finelimedesigns.com\/2012\/05\/21\/puff-pastry-the-recipe\/"},"modified":"2021-10-08T12:38:23","modified_gmt":"2021-10-08T16:38:23","slug":"puff-pastry-the-recipe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bakeschool.com\/puff-pastry-the-recipe\/","title":{"rendered":"Homemade puff pastry"},"content":{"rendered":"
This homemade puff pastry recipe isn't complicated, but it does take time and patience, and a little elbow grease to do the rolling and folding. This is the recipe I learned in pastry school for making homemade puff pastry from scratch with just butter, flour, salt, water, and a little vinegar. It takes time and it's a little laborious, but the results are excellent once you master the techniques!<\/div>\n
\"Apple <\/div>\n

What makes puff pastry rise and puff to become flaky?<\/h2>\n

You'll notice that unlike homemade croissants, which are made with yeast as a leavening agent<\/a>, as well as lots of butter, homemade puff pastry has no leaveners, whether yeast or a chemical leavener, like baking soda<\/a> or baking powder<\/a>. The rise of puff pastry comes entirely from steam, which comes from butter. After all, butter is roughly 80 % fat, and about 15 to 20 % water.<\/p>\n

Puff pastry is made from a very simple list of ingredients and it's mostly butter, flour, and water. You add a little salt for flavour and a little vinegar to delay gluten development when you mix the dough. This way, your dough will not be elastic, so that you can roll and fold, and manipulate the dough without it retracting back as you stretch it out. <\/p>\n

Of course, the vinegar is optional, and you could probably get away without it. However, given how many times you have to roll out the dough to create the layers, you are better off adding a splash of an acidic ingredient<\/a>, just in case. You can use white vinegar or cider vinegar. Stick to a vinegar that is light in colour and not flavoured.<\/p>\n

\"croissant<\/p>\n

When you bake puff pastry, the butter melts, and the water vaporizes, transforming to steam, which rises and pushes the layers up. The layering of the butter within the dough is key and this is why puff pastry requires more rolling and folding than croissant dough does. Since there's no yeast to contribute to the puff, you need more layers to achieve a good rise in the oven and to create that crispy flakiness we all expect.<\/p>\n

Remember that homemade croissants have 4 turns, while you'll notice in the recipe below that homemade puff pastry has 6 turns, which means even more layers. The thinner you can roll out the dough before folding, the thinner and finer your pastry layers will be.<\/p>\n

What to make with puff pastry<\/h2>\n

Once you've mastered puff pastry, you can use it to make tarts, cookies, and even savoury recipes (like cheese straws!). The recipes you can make include:<\/p>\n