Classic Puff Pastry
Category: Puff Pastry
Ingredients
- 2½ lbs (40 oz / 1125 g) bread flour
- ½ oz (15 g) salt
- 1½ lbs (24 oz / 675 g) cold water
- 2½ lbs (40 oz / 1125 g) room temp butter
- 4 oz (115 g) bread flour
Instructions
- Mix the salt in with the larger portion of flour.
- Add the cold water to the flour and salt and work it into a dough.
- Knead about 80 times to make a soft dough and build some gluten.
- Flatten out the dough (allows quicker cooling) and refrigerate.
- Combine the room temperature butter and the smaller portion of flour and mix well. It will form a soft paste that is easy to spread.
- Take the chilled dough and roll it into a rectangle about ¼–½ inch thick.
- Leaving a 1-inch margin around the edge, spread the butter out over ⅔ of the dough.
- Fold the dough into thirds like you were folding a letter, starting with the portion of dough with no butter.
- Refrigerate for 20–30 minutes to allow the dough to relax, and so the butter doesn't get displaced when rolling out again.
- Roll out the dough again to a large rectangle the same size as the first.
- Fold the dough so that the two short edges meet in the center and then fold the dough in half. This should give the dough four layers and is, as a result, called a four-fold.
- Refrigerate the dough again and then roll out and do another four-fold. Repeat this step two more times. You now have classical puff pastry dough to use as you see fit.
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