Puff Pastry

Based on John Kirkwood’s YouTube video

250g strong flour , plus extra for dusting

225g cold butter (5 oz)

So: an equal weight of flour and butter.

STEP 1

Put the flour and a pinch of salt in the food processor. Turn it on and steadily pour in water. When the dough comes together, cover it in cling film and chill for 20 minutes.

STEP 2

Lightly flour your surface and roll the dough into a 25cm circle. Put the butter in between two pieces of baking parchment and soften it by tapping it with a rolling pin. Cut the butter in half and repeat the process until the butter is pliable but still cold. Reshape to the size roughly of a postcard.

STEP 3

Put the butter in the centre of the pastry and fold over the right and left sides of the circle, overlapping in the middle. Press the dough with your rolling pin to make it longer and then lightly mark into thirds. Fold the bottom third up to cover the middle third and the top third down. Seal the dough gently by pressing down on the edges with your rolling pin. Give the dough a quarter turn.

STEP 4

Roll the dough out to a long rectangle (roughly 18 x 38cm), keeping the edges square and the sides straight. Mark the dough into thirds again, fold the bottom third up and the top third down. Seal the edges and give the dough a quarter turn. Repeat one more time, cover and chill for 20 minutes.

STEP 5

Repeat step four twice more, chilling each time. Chill for one hour before using.

Monday, July 10, 2023

Ingredients

300g / 11oz Plain or all-purpose flour

250g / 8.8oz Cold unsalted butter

125g /mls Cold water

4g / ˝tsp Salt

6mls / 1tsp Lemon or lime juice

Part 1

Start by cutting off 83g, that’s ? of the the 250g pack of cold butter, and dice into small cubes.

Add the flour and salt to a large bowl, and mix together.

Add the diced butter to the flour, rub together with your fingers, until all the butter lumps are gone, and you should be left with a sandy texture and colour.

Add the water and lemon juice to the bowl, and roughly mix together.

Pour the mixture onto your worktop and pull it all together with your hands, the mix will appear dry at first, but don’t be tempted to add more water, it will come together eventually.

Form the dough into a rectangle, wrap in clingfilm and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Part 2

Take the remaining butter, and place it in- between 2 pieces of parchment paper.

Using your rolling pin, form the butter into a 12cm or 5inch square.

Now place the butter in the fridge for 30 to 45 minutes.

Part 3

Take the now chilled pastry and place it on a floured surface, roll it out into a 30 x 18cm or 12 x 7inch rectangle.

Remove the paper from the butter, and place it on the top half of the pastry, leaving a small edge around the top and sides.

Fold the bottom of the pastry over the butter and gently press down the edges, to form a parcel.

Turn the pastry parcel 90° to the left, and roll it out into a 30 x 18cm or 12 x 7inch rectangle once more.

Brush off any excess flour, then carefully fold the bottom of the pastry up by ?, and now fold the top down by one ?, gently pat it down, and using your parchment papers, neatly wrap it up, and place it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Part 4

After it has chilled, (always on a floured surface) roll out the pastry once more into a 30 x 18cm or 12 x 7inch rectangle, once again fold it exactly the same as the last time, bottom ? up, top ? down, wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Part 5

Repeat these actions another 2 times, for a total of 4 roll and folds, chilling for 20 minutes each time.

What is happening, each time you go through this procedure, the layers are building up in the pastry.

Part 6

After the 4th and final one, the pastry is now ready to use, wrap the finished pastry in clingfilm, and refrigerate, it will keep in the fridge for several days, or you can freeze it for future use.

You now have a beautiful, and very versatile delicious, buttery, puff pastry, that you can use in many recipes, including pies, pasties, sausage rolls, also lots dessert recipes, it has many uses.

Thursday, July 20, 2023

The current batch of puff pastry has too much butter; too heavy for my gut. The excess butter drains out of the pastry and pools on the baking tray.

For my next batch I will essay with:-

Ingredients

400g / 11oz Plain or all-purpose flour

250g / 8.8oz table margarine

125g /mls Cold water

4g / ˝tsp Salt

6mls / 1tsp Lemon or lime juice

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:-

I use a large sheet of plastic to save dried dough forming on the counter top, and to make it easy to toss flour onto the top of the rolled pastry.

Two paint-sticks from the hardware store help my lomg roller make a thin plate of dough.

I use the roller to trim scrap from the right-hand side. John Walker says “set this aside for sausage rolls”, but I am making sausage rolls, so I shall set the scrapsaside for apple rolls.

Here is the rest of my sauasage meat, chilled after three days in the fridge, with its dash of pepper and dash of mustard.

John Walker weighs his; I measure mine lineraly, by rolling it to the side of a container and then ...

... dividing it into six portions, because, well, I want to make six sausage rolls.

Here is one sixth waiting to be fitted.

I decide that I want my rolls to be so-wide, and run a butter knife down my ruler for a cut. Then I roll the sausage meat until it fits that width.

I roll up the sausage meat in pastry until the leading edge overlaps by about one centimetre, then I use a paint stick as a ruler to cut the pastery and stack the rolls to one side.

Here are three rolls.

And some more scraps of puff-pastry.

When all six rolls are ready, I brush them with water to fasten the open edge to the roll and rest them seam-down on the baking sheet and tray.

25 minutes at 350F in my oven. Your times will vary, so your first batch may need be sampled (heh heh) at five-minute intervals.

Light? Six minutes later one appears to have just floated out of sight!

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