Making puff pastry from scratch has never been easier with my recipe. I absolutely love using puff pastry to make tart and pastry. These flaky layers give any baked good that special crunch and airy texture. Unfortunately, I find laminating the dough is quite time restrictive (#busymum). But that was until I developed this easy homemade puff pastry that will give you true layers of lamination.
In France and most probably in many other countries around the world, ready to use puff pastries are easy to find. That’s unfortunately not the case in my host country. The pasta de hojaldre here comes in a big piece of 1 kilo that you have to roll out. Moreover, I suspect some uses margarine. I can’t stand the smell of margarine … That is the reason why I stopped using puff pastry for the benefit of my express dough
Of course, I have given the classic puff pastry recipe a try (several times actually) but it just does not work for me. I couldn’t stand the idea to come back to it to roll and fold after every 30 minutes rest in the fridge. And most probably out of despair, I would love patience and tear the dough apart here and there …
For my credit, I also gave the quick puff pasrry recipe a try. You know when you use cold water and butter and quickly mix them with the flour. The result was too disappointing. In short, you probably understood that I used to hate making my own puff pastry.
How does my easy homemade puff pastry recipe differ from the others?
Contrary to the traditional puff pastry recipe, I use soft butter. We will not wrap the entire butter inside the dough to roll it out and then fold several times. We will work the laminated layers in one go.
Firstly, we roll the dough into a large rectangle. Then we will spread some of the soft butter onto the entire rectangle. We will fold and spread some more butter and repeat. This is how to will get the lamination.
Equipment needed for this puff pastry recipe
A rolling pin
A silicone pastry mat – this accessory is essential to my opinion. It will ease the folding process by preventing the dough from tearing apart and educe the amount of flour needed to roll the dough out.
A spatula
A stand mixer – you can of course roll up your sleeves and a little elbow grease to knead the dough by yourself. But I find a stand mixer gives you a really soft dough that is so much easier to work with.
How to get a quick and true laminated puff pastry
Use soft butter
Take the butter out of the fridge to allow it to come to room temperature. We will need a consistency that is close to creamed butter. But no need to whisk it. My little trick is to cube the butter and place it onto a small plate. Pour some hot (or boiling) water into a large mixing bowl that can cover the plate. Let it warm up with the water before you discard it. Dry the bowl and turn it over the plate. Let it sit for five minutes. Then work the butter with a spatula to get a smooth and even result.
Allow the dough to fully rest
Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, until it becomes smooth and does no longer stick to the bowl. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let it rest for about fifteen minutes. Once the dough has fully rested, the gluten would have loosened. It will be easier to roll it out.
Lightly flour the silicone mat. Roll the dough into an approximate 15 x 20 inches rectangle. It does not matter if the rectangle is bigger or a little wonky!
It’s all in the folding
Spread half of the butter (aka 50g) onto the entire rectangle. Then, spot the middle of the rectangle and fold each edge towards the centre. We call that gate folding. Rotate at 90 degrees and spread 2/3 of the remaining butter onto the new rectangle. Gate fold again and repeat the previous step with the remaining butter. This time tri fold the dough.
Wrap into plastic cling and let the dough firm up in the fridge for 30 minutes. Yes, the butter is not entirely trapped into the dough but do not fear it will escape when rolling it out. This never happened to me!
Take the dough out of the fridge and roll it out onto a slightly floured working surface. I personally save half of it for future use. I place the puff pastry onto a parchment paper and roll it up. Then I reuse the plastic cling to wrap it and place it into a Ziploc bag.
Tell me what you think of my way of getting true layers of lamination in the puff pastry. As for me, this recipe is a winner, and I couldn’t wait to share it with you! If you too have concerns of making your own puff pastry (for good reasons), definitely give it a go! Will you give my easy homemade puff pastry recipe a try?
Easy homemade puff pastry with true layers of lamination
Course: DoughCuisine: PastryDifficulty: Easy2
sheets30
minutes30
minutes
Making puff pastry from scratch has never been easier with my recipe that gives true layers of lamination
Ingredients
Softened butter (not melted!)
Some flour for the working surface
- For the dough
300 g all-purpose flour
100 g softened butter
120 g water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Directions
- Dissolve the salt and sugar into the water
- Pour the flour into the mixing bowl and add the water. Mix at speed 1 until you get something homogenous
- Add the butter and knead for about 5 minutes or until the dough comes together smoothly and does not stick to the bowl anymore
- Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen cloth and let the dough rest for about 15 minutes before rolling it out into a large rectangle
- Spread half of the butter onto the entire rectangle then gate fold
- Rotate at 90 degrees and spread 2/3 of the remaining butter and gate fold again
- Rotate at 90 degrees again and spread the remaining butter and tri fold this time
- Wrap into plastic cling and let the dough cool into the refrigerator for 30 minutes
- Roll it out onto a lightly floured working surface, cut in two equal parts then roll them out into square
Notes
- You can lay a piece of parchment paper under one sheet, roll it over and wrap into plastic cling then inside a Ziploc bag to freeze for future use
