Trader Joe's Artisan Puff Pastry

[mukki]

For the first time today, I saw a new and very welcomed Trader Joe's product: Artisan Puff Pastry. An all-butter puff pastry, the only ingredients are flour, butter, salt, sugar and water. It's priced at $4.99 and comes with two sheets of puff pastry. I'm pretty excited about this development as the only all-butter puff (Dufour's) I can find is a 45-minute drive away and is about twice the price.

This must be the puff pastry jgarner53 mentioned in her blog a few months ago and the strawberry tart pictured on the cover must be hers!

[jgarner53]

Mind you, I haven't seen the final package, but that is puff pastry made by Bay Bread. We are also making the apricot/almond tart now available at TJ's in the freezer section.

Just my luck that I skipped the freezer section this week when I went for my weekly shopping!

[etalanian]

Is this something that is available only on the west coast, or is it being distributed to all of the TJ's, even out here in Philadelphia?

Eileen

[tavogels]

I live in the Chicago area and it is available here. Got some last week....and returned home to a 4-day power outage! Needless to say, it never got baked. I'm hoping to get some more this weekend and give it a try.

[aguynamedrobert]

Hello Everyone,

Do you work for Bay Bread, jgarner53? Do they/you make other products besides the one and the other they/you are working on?

It is nice to find puff pastry already made and good quality because that can be extremely time consuming and difficult in a home kitchen...

Thanks,

Robert

[caseyell]

Nice to know. I love the Dufour's but have trouble finding it, especially when at the beach (Aptos).

[jgarner53]

Do you work for Bay Bread, jgarner53? Do they/you make other products besides the one and the other they/you are working on?

Yes, I do. But I work in the pastry kitchen. The puff is made, I believe, in our large commercial facility in Ventura, CA. We have another commercial facility (mostly bread, as well as the apricot streusel tarts you'll see in TJ's) in South San Francisco. As far as I know, the only other item we currently make for TJ's is bread (the rustic levain is one). But I do know that other items are in the development process.

The quantities needed for country-wide distribution boggle the mind. In my kitchen, we regularly make, say 60 baked fruit tarts on any given day. Production for TJ's is more like 3,000 a day!

[aguynamedrobert]

Do you deal with the buyers at Trader Joe's to get product in stores or do you do production for Bay Bread?

I will have to go check out Bay Bread next time I'm in the city...

[jgarner53]

No, I really don't have anything to do with the TJ's stuff. Pascal (the owner) makes the deals with them and has one of our other pastry chefs work on the development of product (at least pastry).

I deal with production for the Boulange cafés in the city.

I was at TJ's today and checked out the packaging. The strawberry and raspberry tart on the right side of the front (and on the back) was, indeed, made by me.

[gfron1]

I found them in Tucson this weekend and will make something tonight. The price isn't too bad for a home cook (v. wholesale) so we'll see how they taste. BTW, at least at our store every box was beaten up.

[jaynesb]

They didn't know anything about the puff pastry at Trader Joe's in Plainview, NY.

jayne

[chezcherie]

it is the best puff i've worked with, including dufours and homemade. it ROCKS. i only wish they would insert a parchment sheet between the two sheets. if you forget to pop them apart while they are still frozen, they can be a pain to separate.

we are using them constantly at my cooking school, and when i extole their virtues, i mention you, jgarner, and how fun it was for you to see your handiwork on the box prototype.

it's great stuff...and no surprise, considering where it comes from...great bakery...best macarons this side of paris, and a great croque monsieur!

[gfron1]

I agree. Tonight I made this little apricot dessert and the puff was so easy to use and great flake and taste. So I'll have to decide if the cost (which I think is reasonable) is worth the saved time.

[aguynamedrobert]

Ummmmmm Ummmmmm...what type of filling is that? A pastry Cream or something different?

Edited September 4, 2007 by aguynamedrobert (log)

[apronstrings]

Went to the TJs in NYC yesterday. The manager said they sent all theirs back because the weight was off. Damn. I'll just have to wait a little while longer.

[gfron1]

Ummmmmm Ummmmmm...what type of filling is that? A pastry Cream or something different?

←

Read all about it HERE. Short answer - apricot.

[gfron1]

Went to the TJs in NYC yesterday. The manager said  they sent all theirs back because the weight was off. Damn. I'll just have to wait a little while longer.

←

That's interesting. I just weighed mine. The box reads 16 oz. My scale showed 19 oz with packaging. The packaging came in just over 1 oz, so ours is off to...in the consumer's favor!

[chezcherie]

i do classes based on trader joe's stuff in my cooking school, so i watch what's new there with interest. when i saw that puff in the freezer case (after getting the jgarner "heads up") i literally let out a little scream...i think the customer near me thought i'd seen a mouse! the first 8 or 9 packages i used had two flat sheets and two extra "grandma" pieces...like the piece your g'ma would cut off the pie dough for you to roll in sugar and bake for a treat? i was absolutely enchanted by that little lagniappe piece...talk about artisan style! now, i guess it was an attempt to get them up to weight....but i will continue to think of it as the grandma piece, and wish it was in there....the last few boxes have not contained that little extra strip, so i guess they have "solved" the problem...more's the pity!

[mrbigjas]

Went to the TJs in NYC yesterday. The manager said  they sent all theirs back because the weight was off. Damn. I'll just have to wait a little while longer.

←

i got the same answer from the manager at the TJs here in philadelphia.

[Malawry]

It's available in Rockville, MD. I bought two boxes and plan to make them mine tonight, with a mini-tarte tatin and some pigs-in-blankets.

[Malawry]

OK, the pastry is fan-freaking-tastic. Tastes of butter and bakes into a million crisp shattering layers. Almost as good as homemade. Stood up great to the little Kosher hot dogs I bought at the Kosher market recently. Made a superior base for a honeycrisp tarte tatin. (Yes, that's all I ate for dinner. Who doesn't love appetizers and dessert?)

My two sheets of puff were separated by a sheet of bakery paper. With the paper, they weighed 1lb 2oz.

[jgarner53]

Gee, I don't even make the stuff, and I'm sitting here beaming with pride.

The stuff makes great napoleons, too. (We dock ours, egg wash and sprinkle with sugar, dock again after about 10 minutes of baking)

[chezcherie]

we do faux-poleans....scatter turbinado sugar on the work surface, lay down the puff, more turb on top....roll out slightly (really just to press the rough sugar in). cut into rectangles and bake off...the turb caramelizes in a really lovel way. you can split the gorgeous pillows if you like...sometimes i use a 50-50 mix of lemon curd and mascarpone to fill them, along with fresh berries...sometimes we'll use a mixture of trader joe's mediterranean style yogurt cheese and apricot jam and apricots (or ______insert fruit jam and ____insert corresponding fresh fruit here). either way...they don't suck.

[Dianabanana]

Well phooey! I just went and bought my first-ever package of Dufours--for THIRTEEN DOLLARS--then I come here and read this!

Quick, somebody tell me the Dufours is 2.5 times better than TJ's.

[JeanneCake]

Well, now I'm on a mission to find it in Boston; I have client who wants napoleons on the menu so maybe this is the easy way out for me! And maybe if the pastry gods are smiling at all of us today (instead of rolling around on the floor laughing) it will actually be cost effective compared to wholesale.