Puff pastry is a tricky thing. And the process of its preparation is quite long. This is why many housewives refuse to prepare delicious puff pastries, croissants and real Napoleon cakes at home.
In fact, there is nothing complicated or particularly difficult about making puff pastry. And most importantly, it can be done relatively quickly. By the way, puff pastry can be stored in the refrigerator for a very long time, incl. Having prepared it in advance, you can then use it at any convenient time. And this is a very significant “plus”!
How to make puff pastry at home
1. Before preparing the dough, put a stick of butter to warm at room temperature. Pour flour into a deep bowl. 2. Next add the yeast.
3. Then sugar and salt. Stir. 4. Beat in 2 eggs. 5. Stir and gradually pour in warm water. 6. Knead the dough. It should be quite elastic, of medium thickness. And put it in the refrigerator until it cools to 20-22 C (about 1 hour). 7. The butter should be soft; stir it lightly with a fork until it becomes a homogeneous paste. 8. Meanwhile, our dough has risen perfectly in the refrigerator. 9. Take the chilled dough out of the refrigerator and roll out a layer 1.5-2 cm thick. There is no need to make thin layers, otherwise the finished dough will tear. 10. Divide the butter into 4 equal parts. Brush the rolled out dough with 1 part butter. 11. Fold the layer in half. Repeat steps 9,10,11 3 more times. 12. We get puff pastry according to the recipe of the Pekarushka bakery chain. You can use it to make delicious puff pastries, pizza, pie and other delicacies.
Quick unleavened puff pastry with butter
This dough prepares quite quickly.
However, a lot of labor is required to prepare it. Although you shouldn’t be scared right away. The first time may be difficult, but with experience everything will go much easier. To prepare such a dough, you need the following products: • flour – 1.5-2 cups (about 250-300 g); • butter – 200 g; • water – a little more than half a glass (130-150 ml); • salt – half a teaspoon.
It’s worth starting with preparing the products. The water must be cooled (kept in the refrigerator for at least half an hour), and the oil must be kept for the same amount of time at room temperature. When the ingredients are ready, you can start kneading the dough. To do this, sift the flour onto a clean table surface, add salt and add 30-50 grams of butter. The creamy product must be gently rubbed into the flour with your hands. Now you need to pour water into the flour in small portions and start kneading the dough. The resulting homogeneous mass must be kneaded for at least 5 minutes so that the resulting product becomes smooth and elastic.
Roll out the dough into a rectangle and put butter in the middle (along its entire length) and smooth it out. As a result, the creamy product should occupy half of the rectangle, so that there is approximately a quarter of free space on each side of it. It is these tips that need to be bent and applied to the oil on both sides so that it ends up inside. The rectangle with the wrapped butter must be turned over and carefully rolled out, increasing the layer by about three times. Fold in thirds again, wrap in cling film and put in the refrigerator for half an hour.
Then take out the cooled product, roll it out again, fold it and roll it out again. Repeat the procedure 5-6 times. If the dough becomes too warm, then it makes sense to repeat the cooling. The finished mass can be used immediately for baking, or you can put it in the freezer until better times.
Yeast-free puff pastry made with butter
Professional chefs say that 10-15 minutes of free time is enough for this.
Although, most likely, this is subject to certain experience. It also requires slightly less effort to prepare. And the technology is not as sophisticated as in the previous version. The ingredients of this dough are as follows: • flour – 1.5-2 cups (about 250-300 g); • butter – 200 g; • water – about half a glass (100-120 ml); • chicken eggs – 1 pc.; • apple cider vinegar – 2 teaspoons; • salt – half a teaspoon.
For this test, you first need to prepare the liquid ingredients. Pour water, vinegar, salt and egg yolk into a convenient small container (some chefs recommend using the whole egg) and beat thoroughly until smooth. Place the prepared mixture in the refrigerator to cool.
Pour flour onto a clean table. Dip the previously frozen butter into flour and grate on a coarse grater. This should be done directly over the flour mound so that the pieces of butter fall right into it. When all the butter is crushed, it should be carefully, without kneading, mixed with flour. As a result, an oil-flour slide should form on the table, in the center of which it is necessary to make a depression.
Remove the mixture of liquid ingredients from the refrigerator, lightly beat and pour into the resulting hole. After this, you need to carefully and quickly collect the flour and butter from the edges to the center to form a dough. You cannot knead it in the usual sense of the word. As practice shows, it is the formation of the dough that takes 10-15 minutes. The resulting ball of dough should be wrapped in film and placed in the refrigerator for 3-4 hours. After this, you can immediately start making baked goods from it.
Puff pastry at home - a quick recipe for yeast dough
I usually use yeast puff pastry to bake sweet pies with berries and jam or cookies. Although it is quite possible to bake pizza and other savory pastries from it.
What you will need:
How to cook:
You need to immediately add yeast to rise. I pour warm water into a bowl and stir one spoon of sugar and yeast in it. I put the dough in a warm place for 10 minutes.
In a large mixing bowl, break the egg and pour in the milk.
I mix everything with a whisk. The dough has already risen and increased in volume. I pour the dough into a bowl for dough, stir and send it back to a warm place.
I sift the flour onto the table. I add two spoons of sugar and one of salt. I take a stick of butter out of the freezer and cut it into pieces directly in the flour.
I chop the butter and sprinkle it with flour. There is no need to press or knead the dough. Just chop the butter into small crumbs and add to the flour.
You can do it easier and grate a piece of frozen butter on a coarse grater.
I scoop the mixture of flour and butter into one pile. I begin to gradually add the sponge mixture. I poured a little, sprinkled with flour and butter. Then a little more.
Gradually pour out all the liquid and sprinkle flour from the edges into the middle. Now knead the dough a little until it becomes homogeneous. Do not knead the dough for a long time and do not allow the butter to completely melt.
Wrapped it in cling film and put it in the refrigerator to rest for an hour and a half.
The dough is ready for baking. I take it out and roll it into a layer. You can immediately prepare any baked goods from it. And I rolled the dough into a roll and cut it into two halves. I put it in the freezer for future layer pies.
The dough turned out to be about a kilogram. This is enough for me to cook something twice.
It’s even easier to handle unleavened puff pastry without yeast.
Unleavened puff pastry with margarine
This is not only a quick, but also a budget option for puff pastry.
The fact is that it does not contain butter, but margarine. Some will say that baked goods made with margarine are not as tender. They are partly right, but if we judge by the price/quality ratio, then this particular recipe will certainly take first place. As for the technology itself, it is incredibly simple and is a cross between the first two recipes. Well, the products needed for margarine puff pastry are: • flour – 2 cups (about 250 g); • margarine – 1 pack (180-200 g), it is better to take margarine for baking; • water – about a glass (200 ml); • chicken eggs – 1 pc.; • apple cider vinegar – 2 teaspoons; • salt and granulated sugar – 1 teaspoon each.
Just like in the first recipe, first you need to cool the water and keep the margarine at room temperature. In principle, half an hour is enough for this. Then mix water, vinegar, egg, salt and sugar in any convenient bowl and beat well.
Sift the flour into a bowl, pour the liquid ingredients into it and knead the dough. You need to knead for a relatively long time - at least 5 minutes, so that the finished mass becomes homogeneous and elastic. The resulting bun must be divided into two parts and rolled into more or less equal layers of 3-5 mm thick. Spread each layer evenly with margarine, place one on top of the other and roll into a tight roll. The roll, in turn, is slightly flattened and wrapped in a “snail”, which should be wrapped in cling film and placed in the freezer for 15-20 minutes.
Roll out the chilled dough into a layer and... either start preparing delicious pastries, or cover with cling film, roll into a roll and put in the refrigerator for storage.
Useful subtleties
In order for the final baked goods to turn out to be of high quality, certain rules must be followed when preparing it.
It is better to take the ingredients for the dough chilled. The exception is butter/margarine. And even then, only if it is spread on layers of dough, and not crumbled into flour. Why is that? Yes, so that the butter does not disperse and mix with the flour base of the dough. Otherwise, nothing will work. Both butter and margarine are suitable for puff pastry. Of course, butter is preferable, but margarine is cheaper. As for spreads, opinions differ. Some people consider this product a good alternative to butter, while others are prejudiced against it. This question can be left open. Although if you compare the cost of spread and margarine, it makes sense to opt for the second. Neither product is oil, and if there is no difference, then why pay more.
Baked goods made from puff pastry (puff pastries, croissants, etc.) should be kept in the oven for about half an hour. Some recommend heating the stove only to 180°C. But in fact, this only applies to yeast variants. It is better to place quick dough products in an oven heated to 210°C and bake for 10 minutes, only after that the temperature can be reduced to 180 and leave the baked goods alone for another 15-20 minutes. But thin puff pastry products (tongues, Napoleon cakes) can be kept for only 5-10 minutes at a temperature of around 200°C. This is already quite enough.
The easiest way
Paradoxically, the easiest (though not always fastest) way to prepare puff pastry is to buy it in the supermarket. However, you shouldn’t immediately rush to the nearest store. In fact, not everything is so rosy.
It’s worth starting with the fact that the finished puff pastry is made not with butter, but with margarine. Of course, you can make a similar budget option at home, but margarine is different from margarine. The one used in mass production does not even contain normal vegetable oil. But it contains a huge number of various additives. The composition of the finished puff pastry does not include: emulsifiers, thickeners, dyes and other chemicals. Question: do you need it?
In addition, the price of this product does not correspond to its cost. Homemade margarine dough is much cheaper. So if you take a finished product from world brands, then only as a last resort.
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Making homemade puff pastrygeneral principles and recipes
Of course, today any dough can be purchased in stores without any problems at a completely normal price. But homemade is always tastier, more natural and, ultimately, healthier! We learn how to prepare homemade puff pastry for various purposes. You can prepare a variety of dishes from puff pastry: pies and pies, pizza and many other various baked goods. It’s not very easy to prepare it at home, but it’s also not as difficult as it might seem. It is enough to make such dough once, and in the future you will not see the point in buying ready-made: why, if you can make delicious homemade dough that remembers the warmth of your hands, yourself? Puff pastry is very tasty, crispy and light (but not in terms of calories, we must not forget about this!), and many people love products made from it. In general, it is divided into two types: yeast and yeast-free (unleavened), and each of these groups still has its own varieties (classic, quick, creamy, curd, beer, etc.). In general, the main feature of any puff pastry is the use of a large amount of creamy margarine or butter when preparing it. Features of preparing puff pastry Use premium flour, be sure to sift it. Use cold, but not ice-cold water. The classic proportions are 1 part water and 2 parts flour, but this may depend on the recipe. Instead of water for puff pastry, you can use milk: it will improve the taste, but reduce the elasticity of the dough. Therefore, it is best to use a mixture of water and milk. In any recipe, milk or water can be replaced with egg yolks - then the puff pastry will be even more fluffy and tender. Salt can improve the taste of puff pastry and increase its elasticity; if you overdo it, the taste of the dough will deteriorate, and if you don’t add enough salt, the layers will blur. Creamy margarine/butter should be used cold, but not frozen (the layers may tear, the dough will be difficult to roll out), for more fluffy products, use salted butter, but do not forget to use less salt in this case, as indicated in the recipe. Also, the splendor of baked goods depends on the fat content of the oil; the higher it is, the better. Typically, oil is added when the main dough of flour with salt and water is ready. To increase the elasticity of puff pastry, add lemon juice/acid or vinegar in a very small amount. Recipes for making rich puff pastry You will need: 1 kg of wheat flour, 250 ml of cold water, 500 g of butter, 1 tsp. salt. How to make puff pastry. Sift the flour, mix with salt, add 2 tbsp. softened butter, knead the dough, gradually adding water to it, knead it after rolling it into a ball for another 5 minutes, then put it on a board dusted with flour, roll it into a rectangle 1.5 cm thick. Place cold butter in the center, cut it into pieces 1.5 cm thick and lay it out in the form of a square, fold the edges of the dough rectangle towards the middle so that they cover all the butter, refrigerate for 20 minutes. Take out the dough and roll it lengthwise away from you so that the butter is not squeezed out from the inside, visually divide the resulting long rectangle of dough into 3 parts, fold the right and left ones, covering the central one, then turn it over, roll it out also - lengthwise away from you and fold it in thirds again in the same way , refrigerate for 20 minutes. Do the same 2 more times. This dough is suitable for Napoleon cake and pastries. Recipe for making yeast puff pastry
You will need: 100-300g butter, 20g yeast, 2 cups flour, 1 cup each water or milk and egg, 1 tbsp. sugar, 0.5 tsp. salt. How to make puff pastry dough. Pour warm milk into a bowl, separately dilute yeast in a small amount of warm milk, add to milk in a bowl, beat in an egg, add salt, mix until smooth, gradually adding flour to knead the dough. At the end of kneading, add vegetable or melted butter to the dough, knead the dough until the butter is mixed with the dough, after kneading, sprinkle the dough well with flour, cover with a napkin and leave in a warm place for 3 hours. When the dough has risen, roll it out into a rectangular layer 1-1.5 cm thick, put half of the entire amount of margarine and butter in the center, cover it with part of the dough, put the remaining butter on it, cover with another part of the dough - you get 3 layers of dough and 2 layers of butter between them. Sprinkle flour on top of the dough, roll it into a layer 2-3cm thick, remove excess flour, fold it in four, roll it out again, fold it again, the result should be a layer in which there are 32 layers of butter (if you use 200-300g of butter) or 8-16 layers of butter (if you use 100-200 grams of it, in this case you need to fold the dough not in four, but in three). This method describes the preparation of yeast puff pastry using the straight method. Recipe for making puff pastry for pizza You will need: 400g flour, 40g margarine, 1 glass of water, 1 tsp. salt. How to make puff pastry pizza. Sift the flour in a heap, make a hole in the center, pour in very cold water mixed with salt, carefully combine the flour and water with a knife, then knead the dough with your hands without lumps, cover it, put it in the cold for 1.5-2 hours. Soften the margarine and give it a longitudinal shape, refrigerate for an hour. After the time has passed, roll out the dough so that it is twice the size of the rectangle made from margarine. Place margarine in the middle of the dough, cover with the remaining dough on both sides - it will cover the margarine completely. Dust the dough and work surface with flour, place the dough seam side down, roll it out as thinly as possible, fold it in three, roll it out again, fold it again, and refrigerate for an hour. The dough is ready. Instant puff pastry recipe
You will need: 200g margarine/butter, 2 cups flour, half or 2/3 cup water, 1 tsp. sugar, ¼ tsp. salt. How to make quick puff pastry. Sift the flour onto the table, place the butter, cut into pieces, on it, chop everything with a knife. Dissolve sugar and salt in cold water, pour it into chopped flour and butter, quickly knead the dough, cover it with a damp cloth, put it in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours or overnight, take it out, roll it into a thin rectangle, fold it into 3-4 layers , roll it out again and fold it again. The dough is ready.
Recipe for making curd puff pastry You will need: 100g each of flour, dry low-fat cottage cheese and margarine, salt. How to make puff pastry dough. Rub the cottage cheese through a sieve or puree with a blender, combine with softened margarine and flour, add salt and knead the dough, roll into a ball, put in the refrigerator overnight, covered with a damp towel or wrapped in a plastic bag. Roll out the dough and prepare the desired products.
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