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Classic puff pastry with delicate flaky layers perfect for sweet and savory pastries.
Moving to the Netherlands was a big life change for me. To be honest, I’m starting to feel like Julie off of the movie Julie & Julia where she challenges herself to recreate all of Julia Child’s recipes in ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking.’ Except, I ordered the book, ‘The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts.’ As the name says, this book walks you through the basics and fundamentals of pastry arts including classic puff pastry, tarts, breads, custards, cakes, and more.
I’ll admit classic puff pastry is intimating! I’ve been wanting to make it, but kept putting it off because puff pastry always seemed too complicated. So, I finally got up the courage to make it and I have to say that it wasn’t as difficult as I was expecting. I wanted to check this off the list and move on, but I have a feeling that I will be making this puff pastry again.
Classic Puff Pastry Method
If you Google how to make classic puff pastry, it seems that there are a million different ways to make it. I wanted to learn the most-well known classic French puff pastry dough called pâte feuilletée. There is no leavening agent like yeast in puff pastry. The pâte feuilletée rises by trapping air in each layer of the dough, releasing steam from the melting butter and creating air pockets that help with rising. If you want to learn more about puff pastry check out The Fundamental Techniques of Classic Pastry Arts and also watch How to Make Puff Pastry with Richard Bertinet, the author of Pastry.
Steps to Make Classic Puff Pastry
Repeat after me:
It is just butter and flour. It is just butter and flour. I can do this.
Step 1: Make Rough Dough
- Make the beuree en pommade – This is just a fancy way of saying softened butter. Carefully microwave 35 grams of butter for 15 seconds at a time until it looks like thick sour cream.
- In a mixing bowl, sift the flour and add the salt. Then, form a well in the center. You can also do this on a flat surface but I found it hard to contain the water so I quickly switched to a bowl.
- Add softened butter in the middle
- Mix together and slowly add 4-5 ounces of water until a rough dough forms
- Flour a surface and work the dough into a round ball (do not overwork)
- Score the ball in a t-shape and open it up (see picture below)
- Place in a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap
- Chill for 30 minutes
Step 2: Combining the Butter & Rough Dough
- Wrap 250 grams of butter in plastic wrap and flatten with a rolling pin creating a disk of butter (called a beurrage)
- Flour a surface and roll out the rough dough into a cross shape (see picture below)
- Add the butter disk to the dough
- Fold in the edges to cover the butter disk completely
- Roll out the dough length wise (about 9 inches)
Step 3: Turning
- Classic puff pastry works by creating layers and you do this by “turning the dough.”
- For the first turn, fold one side of the dough into the center and then fold the other side on top (see below)
- Roll out the dough length wise again (about 9 inches)
- For the second turn, repeat the fold and roll out again
- Chill for an hour
- Ideally, you would complete 6 turns but the dough must chill for 1 hour after 2 turns
Can you see the layers??? It was so excited watching this in the oven. I was yelling “WE HAVE LIFT OFF.” This recipe is a bit time consuming, but just remember that it is mostly a lot of sitting in the fridge. So, grab yourself a snack and enjoy the waiting time. Do not let puff pastry intimate you, just repeat “It is only butter and flour. I can do this!”
A FEW TIPS BEFORE YOU START
- Keep your room cold! The butter must remain super cold in order for this to work.
- Do not over work the rough dough, once it comes together it is fine. Do not keep kneading.
- Classic puff pastry has a lot of chilling in the fridge so after two turns, the dough must be chilled. Ideally, the French classic puff pastry is turned six times.
- Baking times will vary depending on what the final product you make with the puff pastry. I used the puff pastry to make chocolate torsades (puff pastry twists). I baked them at 410 degrees (210 Celsius) for 15 minutes. Recipe coming soon.
SUPPLIES
Here are a few supplies I used to complete this recipe:
Note: Some of the links above are affiliate links, which means the seller will know that I referred you to their product, and I’ll get a small percentage of the sale. However, I don’t take your trust for granted, so I only recommend products I’ve used personally and stand behind 100%.
Step-by-Step Guide to Making Classic French Puff Pastry
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 oz of unsalted butter 35 g
- 2 cups of all purpose flour 250 g
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- 5 oz of water
- 8 1/4 ounces of unsalted butter 250 g
Instructions
Rough Dough:
- Make the beuree en pommade - microwave 35 g of butter for a 15 seconds at a time until it looks like thick sour cream.
- In a mixing bowl, sift the flour and add the salt
- In the bowl, form a well with the flour/salt and add the softened butter in the middle
- Mix together and slowly add 4-5 ounces of water until a rough dough forms
- Flour a surface and work the dough into a round ball
- Score the ball in a t-shape and open it up (see picture above)
- Place in a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap
- Chill for 30 minutes
Butter & Rough Dough
- Wrap your butter in plastic wrap and flatten with a rolling pin creating a disk of butter
- Flour a surface and roll out the rough dough into a cross shape (see picture above)
- Add the butter disk to the dough
- Fold in the edges to cover the butter disk completely
- Roll out the dough length wise (about 9 inches)
Turning
- For the first turn, fold one side of the dough into the center and then fold the other side on top
- Roll out the dough length wise again (about 9 inches)
- For the second turn, repeat the fold and roll out again
- Chill for an hour
- Ideally, you would complete 6 turns but the dough must chill for 1 hour after 2 turns
Baking
- Baking times will vary depending on what the final produce you make with the puff pastry. I baked them at 410 degrees (210 Celsius) for 15 minutes to make puff pastry twists.
Beth Mitchell
It does look easy. What if I grated the very cold butter vs melting?
Krystal
So this is a recipe for a full puff pastry which has the little bit of soft butter at the beginning and then the cold butter slab to make the layers. Check out a rough puff pastry recipe which is a bit faster and uses grated cold butter.