Puff Pastry

I have a variety of recipes to make today but I wanted to break them down a little bit because I'm learning new techniques as well as trying out new recipes. The first technique I'm learning is puff pastry. Now I don't want to give away what I'm using this for.. yet.. so you'll just have to wait and see.

Ingredients:
150g Strong White Flour
150g Plain Flour
2 Eggs
100ml Cold Water
250g Butter

I've never made puff pastry before but I've always seen it on programs and thought it looked like an interesting idea, very unhealthy though!! But one of my recipes this week called for this technique so I thought it was about time I mastered it.

The first step is to mix the flour, egg and water together. I was surprised to see this kind of pastry uses both plain flour but also strong white flour as well. Just as well I have a 25KG bag in my cupboard for bread!! This is meant to form a stiff dough, mine was more of a sticky mess:

Sticky dough.

But I wasn't too worried as the next stage was to knead it all together for 10 minutes. By the end of the 10 minutes by dough looked completely different and much more what I'd expect.

Smooth and elastic dough

It was then placed in a bag and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to cool.

I bashed the butter, with a rolling pin until the block was a rectangle 1cm thick. This was the placed back in the fridge for an hour to harden.

Squashed butter

The pastry dough was then rolled out into a rectangle, also 1cm thickness. The size of the rectangle should be similar to that of the rolled butter, as you want the butter to go to the edges of the dough, 2/3 the size.

Place the butter on top of the dough on the bottom, it should be around 2/3 of the dough. Place as close to the edges as possible. Fold over the top 1/3 on top of the butter. Cut off the remaining butter and place on top of the folded edge. Fold over the bottom 1/3 on top of the butter. You now have a dough and butter sandwich.

Folded and wraped

Roll this into a rectangle again. Fold over the top 1/3 and then place the bottom 1/3 on top of this. Wrap this in cling film and then place in the fridge for an hour to chill.

Repeat this process 2 more times.

At this point the puff pastry is ready to use. 

Ready to use

This is a teaser of what I used the puff pastry for:

What are they? 

The verdict: I was very pleased at how my pastry rose and it looked like really good pastry. I'm not keen on pastry so I haven't tried it, as yet, but Gary says it tastes good. The recipe was very easy to use but it is a lengthy process taking several hours. I enjoyed making it and it's certainly something I'd consider making again rather than buying it.