Reas Küche: KBB#9: Classic Puff Pastry (Pate Feuilettee)

Cinnamon Palmiers :D

Another lovely number for me.... 9 (sembilan/nine/nein)

Another lovely recipe for the KBB latest challenge, Puff Pastry with pure butter :D.

The recipe itself is simple, you will need:

1 pound (4 cups) unbleached all purpose flour/plain flour or #31/2 cups flour+1/2 cups cornstarch
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled 1/2 stick, keep the rest at room temperature.
1 - 2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups cold water (you could subtitute it with 1T lemon juice for 1 T water to temper the gluten)

*Dough:
___Measure the flour into a mixing bowl. Remove ½ cup and set it aside in another bowl. Take the half stick of chilled butter, cut it into small pieces and drop it into the flour. With two knives, a pastry blender or your fingertips, cut or rub the butter into the flour until it resembles cornmeal.
___Add the salt (and optional lemon juice) to the water and add this to the flour. Mix gently with a fork until you have a rough dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If you need to add more water, do it a tablespoon at a time until the dough holds together.
___Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until it is smooth and the gluten has been somewhat developed, about 2-3 minutes. Wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

*Butter
___Take the remainder of the butter and the reserved flour and mix the two together until they're well blended and smooth. You can do this with a mixer, a food processor or with a spoon, by hand.
___Pat this butter/flour mixture into an 8-inch square on a lightly floured piece of waxed paper. Cover it with second sheet of waxed paper and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. By mixing the butter with flour, you stabilize it somewhat so it won't decide to 'flow'.

*Rolling-Folding
___Remove the dough from the refrigerator and put it on a lightly floured surface. Gently roll it into a square about 12 inches on a side. You don't have to be obsessive about the dimension but be pretty close.
___Put the butter square in the centre of the dough square but turn it so that the corners of the butter square point toward the sides of the dough square. Fold the corners of the dough over the butter until they meet in the middle. Pinch and seal the edges of the dough together.
___Turn the square over and tap it gently with your rolling pin or by hand into a rectangular shape. Rolling the dough into a larger rectangle 20 inches long and 10 inches wide.
___When the dough is the right size, fold the bottom third of the dough up to the centre and the top third over and turn the dough package ¼ turn to the right so it looks like a book ready to be opened. If the dough is still nice and cold and still relaxed, do another rolling and turning the same way. (If it begins feel too soft or wants to resist being rolled, cover it, put it on a small baking sheet and refrigerate it for 15 minutes).
___If you've successfully rolled it out and folded it twice, you've completed 2 turns. Classic puff pastry gets six. Continue refrigerating it after each 2 turns (or more often if necessary) until all 6 turns are completed.

*Chill
___When all 6 turns are done, put the dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour (and preferable overnight) before shaping.

*Shaping
___After being thoroughly chilled, the dough can be shaped into croissants, patty shells, twists, straws, etc. Scraps can be chilled and rerolled.

*Freezing
___Like other pastry doughs, you can freeze puff pasty in a non-self defrosting freezer for up to a year if it's well wrapped. It can also be frozen at any time during rolling, folding, turning process. Defrost it thoroughly before you use it, just to make sure it does not get too soft.

I was a bit failed on my first attempt...hiks...

I halved the recipes and somehow I miscalculated it, I added extra flour several times to the dough because it was sooooo sticky. Got some problems with the butter leakage as well hehehhehe... you could see on the picture above. Yet, I still continued the process until accomplished to get 3 turns.

But,..........

The result was surprisingly okay, I baked the dough then it turned puffy and its layers were shown nicely like this one....

The second attempt was much better, I improvised a bit on the process. I didn't chilled the butter-flour mixture. What I did was spreading 1/2 of the butter-flour mixture on to 2/3 of the rolled dough and made Dutch envelope. Chilled it for 20 mins and rolled it out into rectangular shape. Spread the rest of butter mixture on 2/3 of the rolled dough again, fold it on Dutch envelope and put it on thie frigde for another 20 mins. I rolled it out again then continue the folding and rolling twice. I made palmiers (shown on pictures above) and keep the rest of the pastry dough for Zupa soup tomorrow ;)

Cinnamon Sprinkles

2 T brown sugar

2 t cinnamon powder

Unbaked cinnamon Palmiers.....

I enjoyed this with a cuppa hot tea....Hmmmmmm
I think I am going to make this again for savoury pastry. It turns out so great....