Getting Familiar with Puffed Pastry

Apparently, Puff Pastry and Croissant Dough are two slightly different things. 😲

Who knew?

After watching both of these being made at different times on The Great British Baking Show, it all looked so simple and straightforward. I had to give it a try. One of them, at least. I opted for Croissant Pastry. So, what's the difference?

While both these pastries rely heavily on the proper encasement of the butter rolled and folded multiple times, creating steam while baking to make the pastry rise, Paul Hollywood's recipes indicate that Croissant Pastry uses sugar and a little yeast, while Puff Pastry uses eggs, but no sugar and no yeast, relying on the  lamination of butter, properly folded to create the lovely rise we expect from this type of pastry dough.
 

Croissants using Paul's Recipe

That said, I tried Paul's Croissant Pastry (click on the link for his recipe) as my first attempt. For one, I really wanted to try a homemade all-butter croissant, and for another, I wanted to be pretty sure my efforts would not be wasted, so I used croissant pastry with its little bit of yeast to give the rise a boost, just in case I should not be able to execute all that rolling and folding quite expertly enough. Either dough gains its beautifully puffed layers from properly rolling and folding the butter within the dough. And so, I call my recipe "Puffed Pastry."

A (Very) Young and Intrepid Baker

As of this writing, I am more than halfway through my 68th year of life. I state this to give some perspective. I attempted making a puff pastry a very, very long time ago. When I was in Guatemala, and still in my 20s, I was an intrepid baker. Not everything came out well, for sure. Still, I had no one to say to me that something was a difficult thing to do, or that I should be fearful of outcomes. I had my trusty Joy of Cooking, and armed with that book and its well-explained, instructional recipes, I forged ahead and made things like Choux Paste, with never a thought to anything other than a belief that I could follow directions with the best of them.

When it came to trying out a Puff Pastry recipe, well, I will say it did not have a great outcome. Looking back on that time, I am pretty sure that I would have used margarine in the recipe, and that would certainly be mistake number one! I can still recall to this day how much difficulty I had with the rolling and folding, and most particularly with keeping the margarine encased in the dough. I can still see, in my mind's eye, how it leaked at the edges or worked its way through the dough to spurt out in spots. These are definitely no-no's, when making a puffed pastry. The most important rule, outside of using a really high-quality butter, is to keep that butter well chilled and encased in the pastry at all times. 

Back to Current Day

I attempted to make Paul Hollywood's Croissants back in February of this year. I felt that at this time in my life, I certainly have had a lot more experience under my belt and surely I should be able to make this pastry turn out. I certainly know better than to use margarine! As it happens, it worked wonderfully well. 

Masking Tape and Rolling Pins

I will say up front, getting the pastry rolled into a fairly strict rectangular shape took a whole lot more work than initially anticipated. Lots more. This is of utmost importance, because it makes the folding come out neat and tidy, and getting all those flaky layers later on depends on this neat, tidy rolling and folding, a process called "lamination." What I did was to measure out the size on my countertop using masking tape at the corners of the rectangle sized areas (one for the butter and one for the pastry itself). This gave me the guide I needed; just keep rolling, neatening and tugging until it reached those corners I had marked out. Having those marks on the counter helped immensely.

I had also invested in a good maple wood, straight, 19-inch long rolling pin. I had never used any rolling pin but the one with handles on the ends, given me by my Mom for my Bridal Shower back in 1970. Getting used to a rolling pin without handles was interesting, for sure. The one really good thing was having a pin long enough so I didn't leave marks in the dough, as would have happened with my golden-oldie of a rolling pin. I will not say it would be impossible to make puffed pastry dough without that 19-inch straight rolling pin, but it wouldn't have been quite as neat. Maybe. I think. 

My Pastry, Second Time Around😚

My Croissant Pastry and Rolling Pin

When I opted to try out Paul's Croissant dough, I did so because I really wanted to try making croissants first. I had never had, outside of buying some at a local "patisserie," croissants made with butter. I had rolled some Pepperidge Farms Puff Pastry into croissant shapes, and used that commercial puff pastry dough for innumerable applications. But that being the ONLY puff pastry available where I live, and it being made with shortening or some such, while delicious, I wanted to know what the "real thing" might be like. 

I will say it right now. THERE IS NO COMPARISON. The butter makes such a huge difference in flavor, it's hard to credit. 

I used a couple of Paul's suggestions for making filled croissants, half of them using bacon and cheese and half using almond paste. Both of these were excellent. Would I use fillings again? Maybe. Not sure. They tasted most wonderful. But, I think in the end, I am just a purist. I would have preferred to have just the croissant to eat.

That said, Paul's recipe called for a fair amount of sugar in the dough itself. I wondered about that at the time, but just went with his recipe. The time for experimentation would likely come, but not at my first attempt. As it turned out, I felt that the croissants were just too sweet. I had never eaten a croissant whose pastry was sweet on its own. I cannot say I have such widespread experience of croissants to say that they should not be sweet like these, but to me (and me with a serious sweet tooth, mind), they were just too sweet. Duly noted, for next time.

I haven't yet gotten around to trying Paul's Puff Pastry recipe. But, in the meantime, my sister-in-law and I were watching Paul Hollywood in "City Bakes." In the episode where he is in St. Petersburg, Russia, he goes to a little pastry shop where they have an amazing assortment of savory pies, made free-form with a puffed-pastry of some kind and with a most amazing amount of decoration on them. They were stunning. I took a series of photos of the TV screen, just to have a reference, when I tried.

And, of course, I just had to try it out! 😃

As it happened, I had just made a roasted turkey breast, and we had lots of leftovers. Obviously, this would be a Turkey Pie. What else would go in was yet to be determined. 

But First, the Pastry

Now that I had an application, I had to sit myself down and determine what I wanted to do for the pastry. I definitely wanted a puffed pastry of some kind and not just a yeast dough. The elaborate decorations used on top of the pies in City Bakes would not be possible with just any yeast dough. I thought about making Paul's Puff Pastry recipe, but then got cold feet when thinking about how this would rely solely on the proper rolling and folding of the butter. I felt I would rather add a little yeast, just to be safe. I wanted the dough to be beautifully golden yellow, so I wanted eggs in the dough. And sugar? I opted to use a just a little; just enough to give it great flavor, but not enough to make it taste sweet.

My version came out spectacularly well. I used most of the pastry in the creation of the Turkey Pie, what with top and bottom crust and all the decorations. Whatever pastry was left was only bits and scraps, which I carefully piled atop one another and rolled out again, though this will never be as puffed as the first time around. Still, I cut some haphazard croissant shapes from this dough and while they came out all sorts of sizes and odd shapes, they were truly delicious, just what I wanted as a croissant in flavor, and they still puffed beautifully. No complaints.  

I have no beautiful photos of the whole process, but truly, it is a matter of following directions, nothing more. I used grams to weigh my ingredients. I feel it is important to use ingredients by weight, making it so much more fool-proof. And ultimately, working as quickly as possible to keep the dough and butter cold is of the utmost importance.

Puffed Pastry Dough

Makes 12 very large croissants, or use pastry for other applications

500 grams bread flour (about 3¾ cups)
10 grams salt (about 2 teaspoons)
40 grams superfine sugar (about 3 tablespoons)
10 grams instant yeast (about 3 teaspoons)
2 cold eggs plus enough cold water to equal 300 ml., total (10 ounces, total)
300 grams fine quality European butter (about 2½ sticks)

Place the bread flour, salt, sugar and yeast into a mixer bowl. Stir to distribute the ingredients evenly. Whisk together the cold eggs with cold water and pour into the dry ingredients. Mix to bring the dough together, then knead for about 6 minutes, either by machine or by hand, as preferred. Place the dough in a bowl, covered, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

On a counter or other surface, measure out two rectangles, using masking tape at the corners to mark the measurements. One rectangle will be the measurement for the butter; 40 x 19 cm (15¾ x 7½-inches). Another rectangle will be for rolling the dough; 60 x 20 cm (24 x 8-inches).

While the dough is in the fridge, get out the cold butter. Use 2 pieces of plastic wrap or two pieces of parchment, large enough to accommodate the measurement of the butter. Place the butter between the plastic wrap or parchment. Bash the butter with your rolling pin to begin flattening it out, then gently press and roll it to fit that smaller measurement of 40 x 19 centimeters. Keep the edges as straight as possible. This may require some work, tidying the edges as the butter is rolled. Keep it to an even thickness. Leave the butter in between the plastic or parchment, figure 2, set it onto a baking sheet and place the sheet into the fridge to chill. 

Once the hour has elapsed on the dough, remove from the fridge, lightly flour the surface you will be working on and quickly shape the dough into a long rectangle, figure 1. Roll the dough, straightening and tidying the sides and corners as needed, until it reaches 60 x 20 centimeters. Take the sheet with the chilled butter rectangle out of the fridge, figure 2, remove the paper or plastic from one side and flip the butter over onto one end of the dough rectangle, figure 3, where it should fit neatly almost to the edges of the top ⅔ of the dough. Remove the remaining parchment or plastic film from the top of the butter. Fold the exposed edge of dough up over half the butter, figure 3. With a knife, trim the butter, just above where the dough has been folded over, being extremely careful not to cut through the dough beneath, figure 4.

Lamination Sequence: Rolling and folding cold butter into chilled dough

Lift the free square of butter from the top of the dough and place it atop the lower fold of dough, neatening the edges, figure 5. Now, lift the remaining top flap of the dough and fold it down over the newly placed butter square, figure 6. The result is now a tidy square, figure 7. Figure 8 shows how the layers should look from the edges. Very carefully, press the edges of the dough to completely seal in the butter. Make a small indent in one corner of the dough with one finger to mark that this was the first roll and fold sequence. Wrap the dough in plastic film or place into a zip-top bag and into the fridge for 1 hour.

Second and subsequent turns

After the hour has elapsed, remove the dough from the fridge to the lightly floured surface, figure 9. Set the dough on the surface at a 90-degree angle from the last roll and fold, figure 10, so that the tri-folded edge is towards you, figure 11. Roll the dough again to a 60 x 20 cm (24 x 8-inch) rectangle, figure 12, then bring the bottom of the long rectangle up one-third, figure 13, then the top down, figure 14, to cover the top fold. Make two small finger indents in the dough to indicate the second "turn" and wrap and refrigerate the dough for one hour.
Repeat this last sequence twice more, resting the dough in the fridge for one hour between folds, then wrap the dough and refrigerate overnight. After its overnight rest, the dough is ready to be used for whatever application you might prefer.

When using puffed pastry, it should be rolled out again before working with it. Never drag a knife or twist a cutter, as this will damage the layers and cause the pastry to rise unevenly. Sharp cuts or straight down pressure from a cutter is best.

Once made, puff pastry can be frozen. Thaw completely in the fridge before using.

This amount of dough will make 12 very large croissants or 18 to 20 smaller ones.


My passion is teaching people how to create a harmony of flavors with their cooking, and passing along my love and joy of food, both simple or exotic, plain or fancy. I continue my journey in ethnic and domestic cuisines, continuing my journey to explore diverse culinary experiences and hopefully to start you on a journey of your own. Join me also at A Harmony of Flavors on Facebook, and Pinterest.