Puff pastry at home

The legendary “Napoleon” cake, “Uvula” cake, croissants and many other culinary products cannot be cooked without puff pastry. Pies, khachapuri, sweet and savory pies are baked from it. This product is so in demand that a self-respecting hostess will almost certainly want to learn how to do it by hand. Know how to cook puff pastry at home, it is necessary for every chef, even if it is sold in the nearest store. Truly gentle, airy, melting in your mouth pastries are obtained only from homemade preparations.

Cooking Features

There is an opinion that making puff pastry at home is difficult. Indeed, not all housewives have the expected result the first time. Sometimes only experience with dough can tell how soft it should be, whether it is not necessary to pour flour or pour water. However, knowledge of the basic features of making homemade puff pastry will provide a quality product without experimenting for a long time.

• Puff pastry can be yeast and made without yeast. To prepare yeast dough products, with the exception of butter, you need to get out of the refrigerator in advance, so that they have time to warm up to at least room temperature. For yeast-free puff pastry products use cold.
• Without butter or margarine, making puff pastry is impossible. From high-fat butter, it is more tender.
• Flour for puff pastry necessarily sift, sometimes twice. This allows you to saturate it with oxygen, so that the dough is more airy. At the same time, the flour is cleaned from small litter, which also matters.
• The preparation technology of puff pastry involves the preparation of a dough base on which are spread butter or margarine. The base is folded with an envelope and rolled out. The procedure is repeated several times with an interval of 30 minutes, each time cooling the dough in the refrigerator. Due to this, the layers are formed.
• It is not recommended to add flour all at once to the dough, otherwise there is a risk of getting too dense dough from which the products come out hard and dry. Puff pastry even after repeated rolling should remain soft and pliable.
• Roll puff pastry should not be too thin - when the layer reaches a thickness of 1 cm, it can be rolled up and sent to the refrigerator until the next stage.

Puff pastry can be frozen, because of this it does not lose its qualities. To freeze the dough layers sprinkled with flour and placed in a package, then sent to the freezer. The shelf life of the product when stored in the freezer will be at least 3 months.

Yeast puff pastry

Composition:

• wheat flour - 0.5 kg;
• milk - 0, 25 l;
• butter - 0, 2 kg;
• sugar - 20-40 g;
• dry yeast - 7 g.

Method of preparation:

• Let the milk warm up to room temperature.
• Double sift flour.
• Melt 50 g of butter, leave the rest of the butter in the refrigerator, or even temporarily put it in the freezer.
• Pour melted butter into milk, add sugar and yeast, stir. The amount of sugar depends on the purpose for which you are preparing puff pastry. If it is needed for sweet baking, take 30-40 g of sugar. If the dough is used for making savory dishes, then it is enough to take 20 g of sugar.
• Allow the liquid mixture to stay warm for 10 minutes.
• While adding flour to the dough, knead the soft, but not sticky dough. Roll it into a bowl and put it in the fridge for an hour.
• Roll the dough into a 1-1,5 cm thick layer.
• Put cooled butter on a board covered with cling film. Cover with a second layer of film, roll out.
• Using a film, transfer the butter to the dough, putting it on one side. Cover with the second end of the dough, then wrap it in an envelope.
• Roll out the dough, roll the envelope again, put it in the refrigerator for half an hour.
• After half an hour, roll the dough again, roll it up, let it cool. Repeat the procedure 4 more times with an interval of 30 minutes.

After the last rolling of the dough, you can not fold the envelope, but use it for its intended purpose. If you have prepared too much dough, you can freeze the rest by putting it in a bag and sending it in the freezer.

Unleavened puff pastry

Composition:

• butter or margarine - 0, 2 kg;
• flour - 0, 4 kg;
• cold water - 150 ml;
• chicken egg - 1 pc .;
• salt - a pinch;
• lemon juice - 1 ml.

Method of preparation:

• Sift flour.
• Scatter about 100 g of flour on the tabletop.
• Slice frozen or margarine butter and spread on flour.
• Chop the flour with the fat with a heavy knife, holding it at different angles. The result should be oily flour crumb.
• Collect a crumb in whom, without squeezing strongly. Put in the fridge.
• Break eggs into a container with cold water, add a drop of lemon juice and a pinch of salt to them. Whisk until smooth.
• Pour a glass of flour into the egg mass, stir vigorously with a spoon. Gradually sprinkle flour and stir the dough until it can be picked up.
• Put the dough on the work surface and knead with your hands, not forgetting that the puff pastry should not be steep.
• Roll the dough into a rectangular layer. Closer to one of its edges, put a lump of butter and flour, which is cooled in a refrigerator. Cover it with the nearest side of the dough, then tuck in the side edges, cover with all the remaining free edge.
• Put the dough on a floured plate seam down and send it in the fridge for half an hour.
• Put the dough on a work surface, the same side as it was on the plate. Roll into a rectangular layer. Roll the envelope again and put it in the fridge.
• After half an hour, roll the dough again, roll it up again in an envelope and send it to the cold.
• Repeat the roll out twice more and proceed to the formation of the products for the preparation of which you kneaded the puff pastry.

This recipe for the dough is considered to be quick, since it can be used after 3-4 extensions, it usually takes twice as much.

Puff pastry without yeast and eggs

Composition:

• wheat flour - 0, 25-0, 3 kg;
• butter - 0, 2 kg;
• cold water - 125 ml;
• salt - a pinch.

Method of preparation:

• Cut off a piece weighing about 30 grams of butter; temporarily remove the remaining butter in the freezer.
• When the butter taken out of the fridge is soft, sift in a bowl of 1, 5 cups of flour (the rest flour is needed for sprinkling and rolling dough).
• Make a well in the flour hill, put the softened butter in it, add some salt. Pound flour.
• Gradually pour in the water, knead the dough. You need to knead for about 5 minutes until the dough stops sticking to your hands.
• Roll the dough into a 13 cm by 25 cm layer as required by GOST. In the center, roll it out a little wider, making “ears”.
• Remove the frozen oil from the refrigerator, grind it on a grater, put it in the center of the formation from the dough.
• Fold the “ears”, covering the oil from the edges. Overlap the free edges of the dough.
• Start gently rolling the dough so that the butter spreads. Continue to roll with a little more effort.
• Roll up the dough in three layers, remove for half an hour in the main chamber of the refrigerator.
• Roll out and fold the dough another 5-6 times.

Although this recipe for puff pastry does not involve the use of eggs, it turns out to be tender and elastic. This version of the test is considered classic.

Video: Awesome universal puff pastry without the hassle!