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Rough Puff
Pastry Recipe
Yields about
2 pounds of dough |
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Use rough puff pastry
to make turnovers, mille-feuilles, cheese straws, and cream horns, or
use it as a crust for tarts, quiches, and pot pies. |
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12
oz. (2-1/2cups) cold flour |
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3/4
tsp. salt |
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12
oz. (24 Tbs.) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
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6
oz. (3/4 cup) very cold water.
Add the water a little at a time since you may need less.
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- Sift the flour and salt onto cold cubes of
butter. For a deliciously rich pastry, use an equal weight of butter and
flour.
- Cut the butter into the flour. Using a
pastry scraper or a large chef's knife, work until you have a crumbly
mixture. Flatten any large chunks of butter with just your fingertips.
- Add the ice-cold water a little at a time
to loosely bind the dough. Mix the dough with the pastry scraper until it
just hangs together.
- Shape the messy, shaggy dough into a rough
rectangle and roll it out until it's ½ inch thick. Resist the temptation
to overwater or overwork the dough; it will eventually hold together.
- A series of folds transforms the dough,
creating flaky layers. Coax the first few folds with a pastry scraper. Use
it to fold the dough in thirds like a business letter. The first few times
you try to fold the dough, it will crumble. Don't worry: around the fourth
turn, the dough will become smooth and solid. Once this happens, I give
the dough one more turn and then fold it into a book fold (top right
photo) to give it even more layers.
- Turn the package of dough 90 degrees
so the folds run vertically. Square off the
edges of the dough as you work. Roll the dough into a rectangle that's ½
inch thick, always rolling from open end to open end.
- Continue rolling, folding, and
turning until the dough looks smooth.
By four or five "turns," the dough should hang
together well.
- Fold the smooth dough into a book
fold for even more layers. Fold
the two shorter sides into the center and then fold the dough like a book.
Brush off excess flour as you fold.
- Wrap the dough and chill it for half an
hour before giving it two final turns. You can then use the dough, though
another short rest will make rolling and shaping easier. The dough then
gets two more turns. At this point you can go ahead and use it in a recipe
that calls for Puff Pastry, but another rest will make it even easier to
roll and shape. You can refrigerate the dough for up to two days or freeze
it for up to a month.
From
Fine
Cooking Magazine |
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