Puff Pastry

Demystifying the Puff

I love puff Pastry...there is no other way to put it.

But what happens when something that was readily available to you, is suddenly not around. For many years after moving to mumbai from the gulf I satisfied myself with hogging on my mom's puffs when I used to go back to Abu dhabi for a break. B'coz in India you don't get puff pastry sheets( sob sob).

then one day when I saw rachel allen on tv, making puff pastry from scratch, i thought maybe I can do it too.

and whats more, on further surfing the net I found many easier versions, called rough puff, which were more to my liking than the classic version. (anything simpler is better ). the basic recipe is pretty simple, its just the rolling and turning and chilling that has to be taken care of.

I took the basic recipe from this video and then made some further changes, referring to some other sites.

Puff pastry palmiers

Chicken Puffs, Yumm!!!

Ingredients:

150 g whole wheat flour

150 g all purpose flour

250 g butter

100 – 150 ml chilled water

Salt

Juice of half a lemon

Method:

most important point while making puff pastry, especially rough puff pastry.

your flour, your water, and your butter, put everything in the freezer for 10 - 15 minutes.

cut the butter into large chunks and keep in the freezer. squeeze half a lemon in the water and keep aside, make sure everything is handy and ready before you start mixing the flour.

blitz the flours, and salt in the jar of your food processor for 3 seconds.

Add half the butter and blitz for 5 seconds, add the rest of the butter and blitz for another 5 seconds. you should be able to see smaller chunks of the butter in the flour, the flour has to be courser than breadcrumbs.

slowly add half the chilled water and blitz again for 3 -4 seconds. add the rest of the water and blitz again, if you feel it will become too wet, you can reserve some of the water (use your judgement). the flour will not form into a single ball, but will start clumping together.

at this point, you have to empty the dough onto a nicely floured surface or a wax paper, for easy handling.

Shape the messy, shaggy dough into a rough rectangle and roll it out until it's 1/2 inch thick. Resist the temptation to overwater or overwork the dough; it will eventually hold together.

Use a pastry scraper or the edges of your wax paper if rollling on wax paper to fold the dough in thirds like a business letter. Don't worry if it folds in pieces. Turn the package of dough 90 degrees so the folds run vertically. Square off the edges of the dough as you work. chill the dough for 20 minutes, at this point if your kitchen is really warm and if you feel the butter is starting to melt.
Roll the dough into a rectangle that's 1/2 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. remember to chill for at least 20 minutes between each turn

For even more layers, fold the smooth dough up like a book. To do this, 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. At this point, you can then use the dough, though another short rest will make rolling and shaping easier.
for the final rolling you have to roll it a little thinner. and shap as you like, you can also just cup it into squares and freeze the sheets for later use.

for Baking - bake for 15 - 20 minutes in a well preheated oven at 200 degrees Celsius.

100% whole wheat puff. Didn't puff

After My puff turned out a success i tried to use the same technique with an all whole wheat flour dough. they puffed very little and the layers didn't separate

Partly Whole wheat puffs, Success !!!

Third try - 50 % whole wheat and 50% all purpose flour -  and we have a Winner