Puff Pastry. At Home. Step-by-step Recipe With Photo

Do you still buy ready-made puff pastry in the store? Let's try to make puff pastry at home! First, homemade dough puffs are much tastier than store-bought ones. Secondly, you know for sure that you will put high-quality fresh butter in the dough, and not expired margarine, as happens in production. And it's not difficult at all - homemade puffs - as many cooks think. Yes, it takes several hours to make puff pastry at home, but most of the time the dough is in the refrigerator, and your participation is not very much.

And how much delicious you can bake from your own dough! Pastries, cakes, puffs … But let's get it in order: first we will learn how to make dough, and then we will figure out how to use it.

Puff pastry ingredients

For 6 thin cakes measuring 35x25 cm:

5 cups flour + 0.5 tbsp. for sprinkling tables and boards;
600 g of high-quality butter;
3 small eggs;
1 glass of water;
0.5 tsp salt;
8-10 drops of 9% table vinegar or 0.5 tsp. citric acid.

Method for making puff pastry at home

Sift 4 cups of flour into a large wide bowl, and leave 1 cup, you will need it later.

We make a deepening in the flour, drive in the eggs, pour in water, add salt and vinegar.

Having mixed the products first with a spoon, then we continue to knead with our hands until a homogeneous, soft, elastic dough is obtained. If it seems to you that the dough is sticking to your hands, you can add a little flour - just a little, no more than 1 / 3-1 / 2 cup, so that the dough does not turn out too steep. If the dough sticks a little, it's okay, this can be easily corrected by sprinkling flour on the table when rolling it out.

Having formed a ball from the dough, cover the bowl with a towel and leave for 10-15 minutes.

Meanwhile, knead the remaining glass of flour with soft butter. For a delicious, high-quality puff, margarine or spread is not suitable - take only real butter.

The butter, mashed with flour, can be cooled slightly in the refrigerator while the dough is "resting".

It's time to start the most interesting stage - the formation of the puff! We take out the dough, sprinkle the table well with flour and roll out the cake into a rectangular layer 1 cm thick.

Put butter in its middle, as shown in the photo.

Put the butter in the center of the rolled dough

Then we fold the dough: first, fold the right and left edges to the middle, pinch.

Then we bend the upper and lower edges of the cake to the center, and also pinch.

Now turn over the envelope with butter (make sure that the table remains sufficiently floured), and carefully so as not to tear the dough, roll it into a rectangle 1 cm thick, about 25 cm wide.

We fold this strip: first we bend the upper and lower edges to the middle.

Bend the top and bottom edges of the dough to the middle

Then fold the dough in half again. It turns out 4 layers.

Put the rolled dough on a floured board, cover with cling film and set in the cold for 30-40 minutes. If it's winter, you can put it on the balcony, if you cook in the hot season, in the refrigerator.

Cover the dough with a foil and remove to cool

After the specified time, we take out the dough and roll it out again into the same narrow and long layer, 1 cm in thickness and about 25 cm in length. Again, fold the dough in four, as described above, cover with foil and set in the cold.