Puff Pastry

I'm not gonna lie, home made puff pastry is one of those things that involves a good amount of effort, but the end result is well worth it. So I grabbed my mixing bowl and got to work.

-3 cups AP FLOUR
-3 oz. BUTTER room temp. cut into little squares

I worked the butter into the flour with my fingertips until the bits of butter were about corn kernel size.

-2 tsp. SALT
-1 1/8 ICE WATER

Next, I diluted the salt into the water and slowly poured it into the flour and butter mixture. Mixing gently with a rubber spatula and then with my hands while forming a round cushion shape out of the dough. At this point the dough looked rough and flaky and almost falling apart, but that's exactly how I want it. I covered the ball of dough with a sheet of wax paper stuffed it into a zip lock bag and through it into the fridge for 30 minutes.

-12 oz. BUTTER room temp
-1/2 cup AP FLOUR

Next I grabbed the 12 ounce block of butter and pounded it down with my rolling pin until the thickness was about an inch. Next I worked the flour into the butter with the heel of my hand. With my dough scraper I folded the butter over itself and continued working in the flour. I worked quickly trying to avoid the butter from melting. I formed a 5" x 5" square about 1 1/2 inches thick then I went to grab my dough from the fridge.

I took my rolling pin and rolled out the ball of dough, bringing it down to about a half an inch thickness while maintaing a round shape which started to resemble a pizza pie. I then placed the square of butter in the center of the flattened dough, folding the dough around the square of butter creating a little package, then pinching and sealing the folded edges closed. Next I want to roll out the dough package into a rectangle shape 16 inches long and 8 inches wide flouring the top of the dough lightly as well as my work surface to prevent sticking.


This next process is referred to as turns 1 and 2.

Once I have my rectangle made I move onto the folding. I fold the bottom third over the center of the dough and then the top third over that creating something similar to a tri-fold pamphlet or brochure. Then with the folded edge facing me and to my right I rolled out the dough again creating another 16”x8” rectangle (turn #1). I repeated this process one more time folding in three and rolling out (turn #2), folded one more time and wrapped the dough in wax paper slid it into a zip lock and placed it into the fridge for an hour.


What makes this recipe intimidating for most in my opinion is how long it takes to complete, but most of the time is spent refrigerating the dough so you can get a lot of other things done in between each turning process.

Next on the list is turns 3 and 4.

I repeated the previous process two more times....folded...wrapped in wax paper stuffed into a zip lock, and then placed the dough back to the fridge for another hour.

I’m almost done...Turns 5 and 6.

Again I repeated two final times...folded...wrapped in wax paper...back in the refrigerator...and two hours later my homemade pastry was ready roll out and bake.

Another great thing about this recipe is that you can make this dough and freeze it until your ready to bake, so you can have homemade pastry whenever you want.

Enjoy!