Puff Pastry

Puff Pastry Dough is an unleavened dough close in relation to Danish Dough just without the yeast. It is also a close relatives to the Middle East's Phyllo Dough. Puff dough is associated with a French pastry chef, of course. Either way, they're all lamination doughs and they're all wonderful. It is written that in 1645, a French chef by the name of Claude Gelée wanted to bake a loaf of bread for his sick father. His father was on a strict diet, one where he was only allowed to eat flour, water, and butter. Gelée made a dough of flour and water and folded the butter into it, and repeatedly folded the butter and dough. Not knowing what the dough would come out like, he put it in the oven anyway, and was surprised by the shape and size the bread grew to be. He took his invention with him to Paris and later to Florence, creating great publicity for the bakeries he worked at. Gelée always made his puff dough in a locked room, and kept “his” recipe to himself until his death in 1682. Today there is no way to know if the recipes we have are the same as Gelée original, but I figure they are pretty close and work just the same.


References to puff pastry dough, or a similar dough appeared before the 1600s. The likely origin of puff dough would be Spain where a similar product was made. It was a thin sheet of dough spread with olive oil which was probably converted to a thicker dough made with butter (modern day puff dough) by either the Italians or Germans.

Puff pastry dough making is a very tedious process, and like most pastries, it requires an exact, mind-numbing precision. Puff pastry and all its attributed factors are a result of layers of fat in the dough. These layers are formed by folding the dough over on its self in a sing-song like pattern, “3 fold 4 fold 3 fold 4 fold”. When the puff dough is baked, those layers of fat melt and open up, which gives its its flaky open texture. There is absolutely no yeast or any other chemical leavening agent n puff dough.

Puff pastry is traditionally made with butter because its gives a better flavor and a cleaner mouth feel. Lard or shortening can also be used, but it doesn't taste as good.

To begin the strenuous puff making process, you simply combine flour, salt, butter and water. Once you have a dough mass, you roll it out into a rectangle, wrap it, and store it in the fridge. Then you take your absurd amount of butter and roll it out to about haft the length and width of the dough. See, they trick you with the simple dough production and the rolling out of the butter. Now that the easy parts over, here come the lock-in process and the repetitive folding (lamination). You now have to place the butter on ½ of the dough and lock it in by folding the dough onto it. Roll it a little to seal the edges. After the initial fold (lock-in) the dough is wrapped and held in the refrigerator for 30 minutes in between folds. Either you can start with a three fold or a four fold, alternating between the two, and resting the dough in between that.
 
 

 
At the end of the day, you'll have an amazing dough that you can pretty much use for anything. Its can be used for savory applications, but it is the basis for a lot of popular pastries. Do Napoleons and Palmier ring a bell? Savory puff pastry items just cant compete with the sweet one, its sad but true.