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It's a Puff Pastry Party!


Megan Blocker

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Susan in FL, Chufi and I decided a few weeks back to tackle our fears of puff pastry and dive headfirst into the realm of pate feuilletee, or, in my case, pate feuilletee expres. We're doing this in our own kitchens in New York (me!), Florida (Susan) and Amsterdam (Chufi), which we all think is kinda cool. Synchronized, long-distance cooking! :biggrin:

I was going to make "rough puff," per the suggestion of PatrickS via this post on the Dinner! thread, but, when I went to help clean out my grandparents' house last weekend (they've moved out of their home in Connecticut after 31 years), I found a copy of Julia and Company up for grabs. artisan02 had suggested the quick puff recipe from this book in this post, and I found Julia's description of what a "turn" is to be much easier to follow.

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My dough is currently resting the fridge, so you'll have to sit tight to see what it will become! But, in the meantime, here's the process thus far:

I measured out 4 cups of flour into the bowl of my stand mixer, then diced 6 1/2 sticks (735 grams :blink:) of butter.

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The butter got a little soft in the midst of all the dicing (it took a while, given the amount!), so I let it chill in the freezer for a few minutes.

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Once it was cool again, I got everything together. Besides the flour and butter, the recipe called for a little salt and some water:

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Then, I mixed the butter and flour together quickly, and added a bit of ice water to bring it together. Julia had 1 cup in the recipe; it was really more like two tablespoons for me. When it was done, it looked like this:

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Mmmmm...look at those hunks of butter! :wub: I then pulled out my SilPat (RoulPat, really), my rolling pin and my pastry scraper. I formed a rectangle...

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...rolled it out, and folded it in thirds, like a letter.

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You can see how the butter stretched out during each fold, and got all streaky. Very neat. After doing this four times (each rold and foll is called a "turn"), I stuck the whole lot in the fridge to chill out.

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More after it's done resting!

Edited by Megan Blocker (log)

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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Checking in from the other side of the pond...

Megan that looks great... very different from mine as you will see below. Wonderful that you took so many pics! I have to confess that I was so nervous about the whole thing that I didn't take as many pics as I had planned.

I used MobyP's puff pastry demo as a guide.

Here's the dough paste mixing with the flour. I think this looks pretty :smile:

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The dough paste is made into a ball, which goes to rest in the fridge. Then you open up the ball and roll it out to enfold your 500 grams :shock: block of butter

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Folding over the sides.

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Wait.. this does not look right!

Running upstairs to look at Moby's pics on the computer!

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Yes.. that's better.

This goes to rest again. Then I start rolling, folding and turning. I'm having some problems. There are huge airbubbles in the pastry..

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.. and at some places the butter is almost coming through:

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But, I keep going. I find out that rolling the dough very gently is essential. Also, letting it rest and firm up in the fridge for at least 1 hour between turns, helps keeping the butter in control..

After the appropriate amount of turns it looks like this:

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I cut in into pieces. You can actually see the layers, pretty cool..

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I'll post the end result (the baked endresult, that is) tomorrow.

Sofar, it was a lot of fun and not nearly as scary as I thought it was. I made puff once before, 10 years ago, and I was a wreck :shock: This time it went much smoother..

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That looks great, Klary! Your pictures are far lovelier than mine. I have no natural light in my kitchen, so... :sad: Yes, you definitely did the more elaborate version! I can't wait to see how yours turns out...

Sooooo...I decided to make an apple tart with my puff pastry; turns out the recipe from Julia and Company made about three times as much as I needed :laugh:, so I cut a third off of the final product (after two more post-fridge turns) and wrapped the rest up tight and stuck it in the freezer (the recipe assures me it will keep for months). Like Klary, I thought it was cool to see the layers when I cut the pastry:

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Next up: baking the crust. I molded it into the tart pan, poked the bottom all over with a fork, and baked it for twenty minutes (with pie weights).

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The result:

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While the crust was baking, I made the filling, which was really just apples sauteed in butter and sugar. Once the shell was cool, I filled it with the filling and a topping of eggs, sugar and more (yes, MORE) butter.

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Finally, I baked the whole tart for about twenty minutes, until golden brown...

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One more pic once it cools and I get to (finally) eat it!

Edited by Megan Blocker (log)

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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Slice eaten! It was very good - definitely layered, as it should be, though it was hard to capture on film. Not the fluffiest puff pastry ever, but then it was under a filling...I'd love to try and use the rest of the batch on something else, something allowed to rise a bit more...

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I should mention that the filling was also quite yummy - all in all, a delicious dessert. And, now that I have some dough in the freezer, I can make it at least two more times... :biggrin:

Edited by Megan Blocker (log)

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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Nice work, Puff Buddies! :biggrin:

Yes, we made puff pastry. The emphasis is on Russ, in "we." We too were going to use the Rough Puff recipe, but ended up, like Klary, using the recipe from the Demo by Moby. That's cool, because the three of us did not talk in advance about what recipes we would use!

We put my laptop on the counter, and followed the demo and recipe from there.

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I am beat, so I'll be up for more discussion tomorrow. But meanwhile, here are three photos from the puff pastry in the making.

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With ours we made "Steak Diane Wellington." Russ was the main cook for the pastry and I was the main cook for the individual beef Wellingtons. More tomorrow...

But first I would like to say to my Puff Buddies Megan and Klary (and Russ), thanks! Even with the encouragement on the Dinner! thread, I would never have tackled homemade puff pastry without you.

The finished product, our dinner...

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Life is short; eat the cheese course first.

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Susan, that looks gorgeous! Can't wait to hear more about the prep...I'm beat, too. I think I now see the point of Pepperidge Farm puff pastry, whatever anyone else has to say about it. :wink:

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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Haha.. Thats so funny.. I was just about to give Megan and Susan grief tonight for not making the puff pastry they talked about.. Last night I was using Store Bought puff pastry and you guys came to mind.. I am so happy that you are doing it.. Chufi too!!! Great job everyone..

Edited by Daniel (log)
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Wonderful work ladies!!! I'm thrilled that you all desided to conquer this relatively advanced pastry..................good for you all.............!!

Was it easier or harder then you had anticipated? Anything or aspect that threw you/challenged you a bit?

Quick mention......this isn't a dough you raise. It can be baked straight from the cooler. You definately don't want to bake it if the dough is warm, wait and refridgerate it until it chills down a bit. Your oven temp. also effects your rise, what temp. did you bake on?

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But first I would like to say to my Puff Buddies Megan and Klary (and Russ), thanks!  Even with the encouragement on the Dinner! thread, I would never have tackled homemade puff pastry without you.

Me too. So thanks Susan, Megan, and Russ!

If I had not had this 'date' with you I would have chickened out (again) this weekend. (It was funny, we were having coffee at my parents house Sunday mornng, and I said, no we have to go now because I have a date with someone in NY and someone in Florida to make puff pastry :shock: )

Megan, that tart looks luscious. I know what you mean about the butter.. I also thought while I was making it, better not think about all that butter...

Susan, I love beef Wellington, what a great idea to use your pastry for that. It looks wonderful.

A question for you Susan since you used the same recipe.. I am really wondering how you could roll it out without any flour on your worksurface.. I needed to add a lot of flour because the butter kept coming through little cracks! Do you have some special kind of non-stick countertop..?

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OK so here is my end result. I made a Jalousie au fromage bases on a recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.. I say based but the only thing I changed is the cheese.. I was having a Jura-themed dinnerparty :smile: so I used Comte cheese. So this tart has sticks of Comte cheese in hte middle, drizzled with a mixture of egg and cream. I'm kind of proud of the jalousie pattern on top.. I'm ususally not very good at things which require some sort of geometrical insight.

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Closeup:

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Anyway, here's when the fact that we were having friends over for dinner, we were all hungry, and that I already had 2 glasses of wine when I put this in the oven, takes it's toll.. I really think I should have baked this a litle bit longer. I'm sure it would have puffed up a bit more. As it was, some of the pastry on the inside was a little underdone.

Ah well. It was delicious, anyway. Here it is on the plate (in very small slices because it was incredibly rich) served with a little salad of endive, with a sharp red wine/shallot / bacon dressing.

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Was it easier or harder then you had anticipated? Anything or aspect that threw you/challenged you a bit?

It was, actually, easier then I had expected. It takes a lot of time but most of that time the dough is resting in the fridge.. With the only drawback that I was using my countertop for the rolling, so that stayed messy and floury for hours, because there was no point in cleaning it in between.

The fact that my butter kept leaking through the pastry made me nervous.. had to use a lot of flour to keep it from sticking. I think the problem was that I was too rough with the pastry on the first rolling. You really should roll very gently.

I also had some problems figuring out the whole turning thing.. had to call in my husband to help me with that!

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Like Megan, I put most of the leftover pastry in the freezer, but there were still some scraps in the fridge and I decided to play with them a bit this morning (without getting distracted by wine or guests :smile: )

I wanted to see how the pastry would behave if you would just bake a naked little piece.

here's what that looked like:

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as you can see it's puffed up nicely, but at the corners, the layers seen to be compressed together. Does that have anything to do with the way I cut it? what is the right way to cut puff pastry? I'm hoping some expert will chime in here.

And then I made myself a little sweet to go with my morning coffee. Just a round of puff pastry, some slices of apple, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. Pretty.. I love the way the layers are visible on this one!

gallery_21505_358_18228.jpg

Edited by Chufi (log)
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Chufi pm'd me to say what you mad bakers were up to - congratulations! I'm only sorry I didn't know it was happening, as I'm completely out and would've joined the pastry escapade. Hey, maybe I should be the judge here - each of you send me a sample, and I shall scientifically examine them (in my own particular and incredibly scientiffic way), leaving no layer unbaked!

"Gimme a pig's foot, and a bottle of beer..." Bessie Smith

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"111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321" Bruce Frigard 'Winesonoma' - RIP

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Wonderful work ladies!!! I'm thrilled that you all desided to conquer this relatively advanced pastry..................good for you all.............!!

Was it easier or harder then you had anticipated? Anything or aspect that threw you/challenged you a bit?

Quick mention......this isn't a dough you raise. It can be baked straight from the cooler. You definately don't want to bake it if the dough is warm, wait and refridgerate it until it chills down a bit. Your oven temp. also effects your rise, what temp. did you bake on?

I did cool it again after molding it into the tart pan (rather rustically molding it in, I might add...I was not very neat yesterday!) and before putting it in a 375 degree oven (the recipe for the tart itself was courtesy of Patricia Wells' Bistro Cooking). I guess I meant more that I would like to see how it cooks up sans topping/filling - the crust seemed very flaky and layered; I'd like to see more of that, just to see how it works! :biggrin:

The quick puff recipe was pretty easy (time-consuming, but not technically challenging) - not really all that different from making pate brisee, aside from the turns aspect, and the higher ratio of butter to flour. I'd like to try the non-cheating way once, to see how it compares!

Edited by Megan Blocker (log)

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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Like Megan, I put most of the leftover pastry in the freezer, but there were still some scraps in the fridge and I decided to play with them a bit this morning (without getting distracted by wine or guests  :smile: )

I wanted to see how the pastry would behave if you would just bake a naked little piece.

here's what that looked like:

gallery_21505_358_25093.jpg

as you can see it's puffed up nicely, but at the corners, the layers seen to be  compressed together. Does that have anything to do with the way I cut it? what is the right way to cut puff pastry? I'm hoping some expert will chime in here.

And then I made myself a little sweet to go with my morning coffee. Just a round of puff pastry, some slices of apple, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. Pretty.. I love the way the layers are visible on this one!

gallery_21505_358_18228.jpg

Gorgeous, Chufi! I have so much left over...and an extra apple from my filling. I think I know what to do with it. Oh, wait - I still have a WHOLE TART (minus a small slice) in my kitchen. :laugh:

Maybe next week, then... :wink:

Let me also say thanks to Susan, Klary (and Russ!) - like them, I never would have done this without support, albeit long-distance, and I'm so glad I did.

Edited by Megan Blocker (log)

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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Good Morning, and Good Day, wherever you are. :smile: Yesterday and last night was a lot of fun, but I agree with Megan -- I still see the point of Pepperidge Farm!

The prep was time consuming, but as mentioned, a lot of that time was resting-in-the-fridge time. Russ had read up on this whole process a lot more than I did, and he looked over several recipes before deciding to go with Moby's. Therefore, he knew more about the turns and more about no-no's than I. For example, I was suggesting at one point that we roll it the opposite way and he quickly told me oh no, we couldn't do that. :laugh: The time when some butter had oozed out I suggested a fold that would put the butter back on the inside. He told me we really shouldn't do that, but we did, and it turned out OK. I think the prep will be easier next time, having done the deed once and knowing more about what to expect. However, on the other hand, maybe there is something to be said for beginner's luck!

Wendy, what threw us and challenged us the most was how quickly we needed to work so that the butter and dough didn't warm. I was surprised the first time we took the rolling pin to the hard butter enveloped in the dough. I thought that would be too hard to smash, but it surely was not. Overall, it was easier than I expected, but still I wouldn't do this every time I need puff pastry. The reason is that I just don't enjoy baking or working with dough as much as I enjoy "cooking." I'll use homemade all the time, though, if Russ is willing to make it for me!

A question for you Susan since you used the same recipe.. I am really wondering how you could roll it out without any flour on your worksurface.. I needed to add a lot of flour because the butter kept coming through little cracks! Do you have some special kind of non-stick countertop..?

We were amazed about needing no flour on our worksurface -- actually no extra flour at all -- the first time we made pasta in this kitchen, during the homemade pasta Cook-Off. Then about a month after that, we made pasta again, and it was sticky and we needed it (and had flour everywhere, all over everything). That taught us a lesson. The first time was during the hot hot summer and we had the air conditioning on. The second time was when our weather had cooled enough to be able to open our windows, making it more humid inside our house. So, for this Puff Pastry Party, we closed up our house and turned on the air conditioning. We pumped it up and got it very dry and cool in here. That -- along with Russ's expertise of course :biggrin: -- might be the reason. Our countertop is definitely not non-stick.

Klary, your finished products looked wonderful. I just know that cheese tart was delicious. I once made Feuillete Comtois au Jambon, using the Pepperidge Farm and it was one of the best tasting things I ever ate! I can imagine how Comte would be with homemade. Mmm-mmm, I wonder if I could get my hands on some Comte, for using what we have left over...

We froze half of what we had left, and the other half is in the fridge. Does anyone know how long this will be good, from the fridge?

Megan, have you decided what to do with what you have left?

Life is short; eat the cheese course first.

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Megan, have you decided what to do with what you have left?

Sorry to butt in here … but a fantastic use for scraps (or any leftover puff pastry) is to wrap pieces around squares of dark chocolate, brush with egg, and bake to make pain au chocolat :biggrin:

Cutting the lemon/the knife/leaves a little cathedral:/alcoves unguessed by the eye/that open acidulous glass/to the light; topazes/riding the droplets,/altars,/aromatic facades. - Ode to a Lemon, Pablo Neruda

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Megan, have you decided what to do with what you have left?

Sorry to butt in here … but a fantastic use for scraps (or any leftover puff pastry) is to wrap pieces around squares of dark chocolate, brush with egg, and bake to make pain au chocolat :biggrin:

Um, I think we have a winner! :laugh:

I have tons, though, so it will last a while. I think I may make some individual chicken pot pies, and maybe an onion tart!

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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Overall, it was easier than I expected, but still I wouldn't do this every time I need puff pastry. 

I think I will. Seriously. I might have some storebought for an emergency supply, but I think I will keep making my own.. I have a lot in the freezer right now.. and it's not something you use every week.. so this is going to last me a while.. and then I'll make some more!

It just tastes so good.. that little apple tart I made this morning, which was nothing but pastry, an old wrinkled apple, sugar and cinnamon, tasted so fantastic...

I do have to say, I don't know about this Pepperidge farm thing, maybe that's good puff pastry to buy. The stuff you buy in the supermarket over here, is pretty bad.

I use the store bought puff mainly for quiche-type things. But with this good-tasting homemade stuff, I'm going to think of more exciting ways to use it up. I'm sure it'll keep poppng up in the Dinner! thread...

Edited by Chufi (log)
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Once I run out of my faux-puff, I do want to try to make the real kind. I don't really think there's that much difference in work (time, yes, but the faux is time-consuming, too). I think it's definitely something you make in bulk and use over time, though.

And on an impulse? I definitely see myself buying Pepperidge Farm rather than dirtying up my one (yes, ONE) countertop for a whole day...but maybe the goal is to make some every six months and just keep it in the freezer!

I guess we now know that Chufi is the true artisan amongst us! :wink:

Edited by Megan Blocker (log)

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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somebody stop me, please :laugh: I already baked something with puff pastry three times within the last 24 hours.. here's what i did with the last scraps of pastry that were in the fridge:

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this was so easy.. just squares of pastry pressed into muffin tins..

The filling is smoked bacon sauteed with little cubes of celeriac, mixed with comte cheese, egg and cream... they were so good I wanted to eat a dozen... maybe it was a good thing we had only 4 for the two of us!

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Klary, put down the rolling pin and STEP AWAY from the pastry dough. That's it, nice and slow. :laugh:

You are a hoot! If I'd known you had such an addictive personality, I never would have encouraged such an undertaking. Hee hee! Keep the pastry porn coming! :wink:

ETA: If only I were in Amsterdam, I could take full advantage of your addiction and chow down on those delicious-looking tartlets.

Edited by Megan Blocker (log)

"We had dry martinis; great wing-shaped glasses of perfumed fire, tangy as the early morning air." - Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado

Queenie Takes Manhattan

eG Foodblogs: 2006 - 2007

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