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Suz’s Quick Puffy Pastry
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I always thought puff pastry was a difficult specialty dough that I needed to buy frozen. After wasting portions of defrosted commercial puff pastry that didn’t get used in time, I thought there had to be a better solution. I found it! After combing through many variations and recipes, I felt confident I could come up with a reasonable facsimile on my own. I gave it a try and made home-made puff pastry for a Beef Wellington. Despite the unorthodox ingredients and food processor technique described below, it worked great! More importantly, it’s possible to do this pretty easily for a small quantity. See what you think when you try it yourself.
Ingredients
1 C flour, chilled in freezer
1/3 C butter, broken/cut into 1 in pieces, chilled or frozen
1/4 t baking powder
1/2 t sugar
1/2 t salt
1/3-1/2 C cold water
Instructions
Chill in freezer in advance:
1 C flour
1/3 C butter, broken/cut into 1 in pieces
Add and pulse to mix in the food processor:
1 C flour (from the freezer above)
1/4 t baking powder
1/2 t sugar
1/2 t salt
Add frozen butter to flour mixture. Pulse to mix coarsely. There should be pea-sized bits of butter in the flour. Do not over-process.
Set the food processor on mix and slowly add:
1/3-1/2 C cold water
Remove when it starts to hold together in a ball. Form into a loose square.
[Wrap in plastic wrap and chill if the mixture is getting to room temperature at any point. The secret is keeping the dough chilled.]
Remove from fridge and on a floured board, roll gently into a rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Fold along long edge into thirds. Turn and roll carefully out again to a rectangle.
Repeat the roll & turn 2-3 times, chilling as needed to keep the dough cold.
After the last thirds fold, fold in half again to form a square, wrap in plastic wrap and rest in fridge for 30 min OR freeze for future use.
To use:
*Defrost from freezer: overnight in the fridge OR at room temperature for 2-3 hours.*
Unwrap, roll out and use in your favorite puff-pastry recipe.
To see how I used this, check out my Beef Wellington recipe on this site.