Freezing puff pastry

[mm84321]

I have a book that suggests freezing puff pastry after completing the third and fourth turn, then waiting to make turns 5 and 6 once defrosted. Can anyone help me understand the logic behind this? I have frozen puff pastry that was turned 6 times, defrosted and used it straight away without a problem.

[nickrey]

As a lot of people use ready-made frozen puff pastry to good effect, I'm not sure that I see the logic in this.

[Lisa Shock]

I don't get it. Seems like it would get a lot of gluten development in the defrosting and subsequent folds.

[Kerry Beal]

I guess this begs a little experiment with two small side by side batches. mm - let us know how it works out!

[ChrisZ]

The only thing I can thing of is if the book is aimed towards professionals who make one large batch of pastry on a weekly or fortnightly basis. The author might be assuming that in this situation the pastry will always be frozen before use, and the tip is not simply that pastry can be frozen, but that because it will be frozen waiting until it is defrosted before making the last two folds will give a better result. Don't know why, though. If it's not to do with gluten development then maybe it's to stop the butter melting?

I hope you're able to do the experiment and let us know the results.

[MelissaH]

Nothing to add, except another voice asking for the results of the experiment!

[furzzy]

I, too, would love to hear the results of a test. Are you planning to do one?

[NickLam]

Can't chime in on why they suggest this process. Using inverted puff pastry and have it frozen in production batches all the time with no problems. Even if the defrosting + turns 5 & 6 results in a 'puffier' pastry, can a normal human really tell the difference? Is it worth the additional trouble?

The only reason I can think of for the author's technique is when a cook forgets to give it the final turns and goes on a 2 day break! I've certainly done that before!

[Broken English]

Possibly because it is colder if you're rolling it from near frozen for the last turns, but it doesn't make sense to me either. So long as you're getting a result you're happy with, who cares?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

It could be an instruction for very hot environments. I generally follow the freeze before 5-6 step simply because even on a cool day it's well over 30C in the kitchen, and the pastry handles better with a gentle freeze and thaw between 4 and 5 to firm up both the paste and the butter. I have to do the thaw step in the fridge because at those temperatures, puff pastry can go completely watery on me in five minutes if I'm not paying close attention to it.