Description
Homemade rough puff pastry dough elevates baking with its buttery, flaky layers of deliciousness. Professional bakers and home cooks can master this simple technique to create mouthwatering pastries that impress at first bite.
Ingredients
Scale
Pastry Base:
- 2.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter (cold and cubed)
Liquid Ingredients:
- 0.5 cup (120 milliliters) ice-cold water (more if needed)
Flavor Enhancer:
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice (optional, helps with flakiness)
Instructions
- Create a powdery base by blending flour and salt in a spacious mixing vessel.
- Introduce chilled butter cubes into the flour mixture, then delicately fragment using fingertips or a pastry tool until the texture resembles rugged, uneven crumbs with butter particles scattered throughout.
- Create a shallow crater in the center of the flour-butter amalgamation, then cascade ice-cold water and optional lemon juice into the depression, gently coaxing the ingredients into a cohesive mass using a fork.
- Transfer the nascent dough onto a lightly dusted work surface, tenderly manipulating it with minimal kneading until a loose, imperfect sphere emerges.
- Metamorphose the dough into a rectangular shape approximately half an inch thick, then execute a precise tri-fold reminiscent of a business correspondence.
- Rotate the folded dough by 90 degrees, then methodically stretch it into another rectangular form, repeating the elegant tri-fold technique.
- Envelop the dough in transparent film and allow it to rest and chill within the refrigerator for a minimum of half an hour.
- Iterate the rolling and folding sequence an additional two to three times, ensuring thorough refrigeration between each transformation to enhance the pastry’s ethereal, flaky architecture.
- Upon completing the folding ritual, the pastry is primed for deployment, ready to be rolled to your desired thickness for culinary exploration.
Notes
- Cold butter is crucial for achieving those signature flaky layers in rough puff pastry, so keep ingredients extremely chilled throughout the process.
- Minimal handling prevents gluten development, ensuring a tender and light pastry texture that melts in your mouth.
- Work quickly and confidently when mixing and folding to maintain butter’s cold temperature and create distinct, beautiful layers.
- Store unused pastry dough wrapped tightly in plastic wrap inside the freezer for up to 3 months, allowing spontaneous baking adventures anytime.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Snacks, Desserts
- Method: Rolling
- Cuisine: French
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 8
- Calories: 250
- Sugar: 0 g
- Sodium: 140 mg
- Fat: 19 g
- Saturated Fat: 12 g
- Unsaturated Fat: 7 g
- Trans Fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 21 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Cholesterol: 30 mg