Rough puff pastry

Rough puff pastry – a quicker version of making your own homemade puff pastry dough, with ingredients you probably already have on hand!

Flashback to a few days ago: me, standing in the frozen section of the grocery store.

Puff pastry dough was nowhere to be found.

Rather than giving up the idea of my new recipe, I decided I’d figure out how to make puff pastry from scratch.

Since I (apparently) like to do things the hard way sometimes.

When I started doing research, I learned that it’s typically a process that takes hours and hours, requiring refrigeration between each step.

Just when I started to feel defeated, I learned of a process called “rough” puff pastry dough, seeming to yield the same results in much less time!

The first time I made this, I misunderstood the process and thought I needed to combine equal parts butter and flour. Um, that’s very wrong. Totally not true guys.

I realized that it’s the same proportions by WEIGHT, not cup measurements. If I lived in another country I would have understood this.

This is probably not the recipe for you if you are looking for one of my “skinny” recipes, as this has a LOT of butter. Literally all it has in it is flour, butter, a little bit of water and a pinch of salt.

But I still think this is a fun recipe to have in your repertoire for those times that you can’t find it in stores and you REALLY want to make Baked Brie Pops or something.

To make one sheet of puff pastry you’ll need 1 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 11 tablespoons of unsalted butter (that’s almost 1.5 sticks – or 1 stick + 3 T). 

Start with VERY cold butter. Some use frozen butter and use a food processor to combine, but I like to do things by hand (read above where I like to do things the hard way).

If you want to be like me and do by hand, cut the cold butter into small chunks and mix it together in the flour on your work surface – you don’t even need a bowl!

Make a well in the center and add 1/4 cup of ice water.

Lightly knead the water into the dough.

You don’t want to overwork it – the key here is to keep the ingredients COLD and not entirely break the butter into the dough.

Puff pastry gets its “puff” because of the chunks of butter and the layers you will create in the next step.

When just combined, roll out dough into a long rectangle. Fold into thirds by folding the top third down and the bottom third up.

See below for a somewhat choppy demonstration.

Turn dough 1/4 turn, roll out into a long rectangle again, and repeat this folding process for at least a total of 4 times.

This is what creates the flaky layers. Do this quickly so that the dough stays cold!

After this process, put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up the butter.

You can store in the fridge for a few days (or freeze for longer) if you are not making right away.

If making immediately, after the 30 minutes in the fridge you can bake at 400°F for 15-20 minutes.

What do you like to make out of puff pastry? Some of my favorites that I’ve used rough puff pastry for are:

• Egg Tart with Avocado
• Asparagus Tart with Goat Cheese
• Heirloom Tomato Tart
• Asparagus Puff Cigars
• Plum Galette

Of course I prefer to get the frozen puff pastry sheets from Trader Joe’s, but this recipe is helpful when you can’t find any!