Friday, January 11, 2013

Puff pastry dough


The credit for this goes to Michel Richard, his recipe and method. And his great French accent, which is a must to accompany the recipe :). If you are lucky the video is still up here.
And helps. I will try to make one or at least couple of pictures later, I believe I will have to exercise this technique before mastering it..

Ingredients
450 g (1 pound) pastry flour (1 part plain bleach cake flour + 3 all purpose flour)
300 ml (1 1/4) cup water
1.5 tsp salt
450 g (1 pound) unsalted butte

Yields 1200 g (1.2 kg) puff pastry dough. 

Mix the flour with the salt and water. Knead a soft dough, make few cuts to "brake" the elasticity of the pastry and put it in the freezer to rest. I don't have food processor, so I actually made cross cuts in the dough, kneaded, turned 90 degrees, kneaded, cut, turned, kneaded, ... until I felt it is a soft, smooth dough.
Take the butter from the fridge, brake it a bit, make it more flat.
I won't mention it every time in the next lines, but whenever you put the dough in the fridge wrap it into transparent foil.
Roll the dough in a square (more thick in the middle as said by chef Michel) turn it with one corner towards you, place the butter in the middle, fold the dough on top, roll it in a rectangle, fold in three (the two "wings" from the side in the middle), roll, turn 90o, fold, and put in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Then roll it out, fold, turn, roll, fold and place it back for another 30 minutes.
After 30 min roll it out, fold it, turn, roll it out and fold. Put it back to the fridge for another 30 min.
Second time looked so much smoother, was nice to see it getting there.. and I actually rolled and folded it 3 times instead of twice, even if not recommended in the video, I just felt I want to.. Not gonna replace the last folding, it's just an extra.
And last , take it our for the third time, roll it out, fold it, turn 90o, roll it out, fold, and put it back to the fridge. You can use it after 30 min, or you can refrigerate for later use.
When you take it into use, roll it out, fold, turn, roll out and fold two times more, and then use you dough as whish.
NEVER knead it, just let the layers stay as they were rolled during the process.

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