Photo: saketvora / Flickr

Puff pastry can be intimidating if you’ve never made it before. All the steps involved can make it seem quite a lot more complicated than it really is. This is an easy method as it has the butter combined with the flour to start with. Have no fear or hesitation as you roll and fold the pastry. Practice makes perfect so even if your first batch doesn’t look perfect, it will still taste good and you can dress it up.

Ingredients

To make 900 grams of puff pastry, you will need the following ingredients: 420 grams of plain flour, 325 grams of finely diced butter (cold), 150 ml of cold water (use ice blocks to get it really cold), 3 teaspoons of sugar and 5 ml of salt.

The dough

Sift the flour onto the surface and rub the butter into it until it has a crumb-like consistency. Make a well in the centre of the crumb-like mixture and add the water into the well. Pour the salt and the sugar into the water and mix it up with the water to dissolve it.

Start working the crumb-like mixture into the water in the centre. Don’t worry about the lumpiness as you bring all the crumb-like mixture into the batter. As you work the mixture, the dough will start to form. Press down onto the dough, part by part, using the palms of your hands.

As uneven as it may appear to be, bring the dough together to form a ball shape. Now shape the ball into a block with straight edges. Wrap the dough in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for an hour.

Working with the pastry

Roll out the cool pastry onto a lightly floured surface to form a rectangle of about 40 cm by 25 cm. Fold a third of the pastry on the long side into the centre and then fold the remaining third on top of that. Fold a third of the short side into the centre and the remaining short side on top of that.

Using the palms of your hands, press down onto the folded up pastry. Roll out the pastry into another rectangle of 40 cm by 25 cm. Fold the pastry as you did before: fold a third of the pastry on the long side into the centre and then fold the remaining third on top of that. Fold a third of the short side into the centre and the remaining short side on top.

To freeze half of it, flatten it into a 20 cm by 10 cm rectangle, slice it in half, freeze one half and use the other. Rest the pastry you want to use in the fridge for an hour before rolling it out again and using it.

Tags: baking