Challenge Number 2- Puff Pastry

I have never made puff pastry, always buy it already made and that certainly is the easiest way to produce delicious tarts or baked goods with this wonderful dough. When buying already prepared puff pastry I like Dufour’s, it is consistently the best, buttery, flaky and delicious. In researching how to make puff pastry I first saw a post from The Kitchn, she gave a wonderful tutorial with photo’s each step of the way, it was quite involved and fussy but I was game. After reading the entire post and the comments I noticed someone mentioned this video with Julia Child and Richard Medrich, she said his method is simple and her puff pastry always turns out well. One never has to second guess anything from Julia and Mssr. Medrich is an expert. This is the recipe I chose to make. See the video below, he makes it look so easy.  I HIGHLY recommend you watch the video, I tried to write directions but it’s difficult as the instructions for this pastry really makes sense when you watch. I am making this tomorrow, dividing this into two posts.  Today at the farmers market I found some strawberries and rhubarb and decided I will go with full out spring flavors, using both in a tart made with my homemade puff pastry. Don’t know how it will turn out. I just put the butter in the freezer where it will sit all night, weighing my flour and refrigerating it as well. Julia mentions how important it is for everything to be very cold. I will place ice packs on my marble board so even it is cold.

I plan on starting bright and early in the morning. Does anyone want to make this with me? Who is game?

Puff Pastry

Julia Child and Richard Medrich

1 lb flour

1 lb unsalted butter frozen (you can freeze sticks of butter or cut into pieces)

1 1/4 cup ice water

1 1/2 tsp salt

Add the flour, salt and water to the food processor. Pulse until it becomes a cohesive dough. Remove and form into a disk, make slices in the dough first across then in a diamond pattern across again. Cover with a wet tea towel and remove the butter from the freezer. Pound the butter into a 4×4 square (approximately). Roll out your dough into a rectangle so that it is a bit thicker in the middle (see the video) you want the rectangle slightly larger than the 4×4 butter square. Place the cold pounded butter on the dough and fold so that the dough is completely covering the butter. Pound with rolling pin and roll sprinkling with flour so it doesn’t stick to the pin. You want it in a long rectangle. Fold like an envelope, then pound and roll again, fold again like an envelope. Mark twice with your finger imprint and wrap in a damp towel and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Repeat the turns as described above marking 2 more times for a total of 4 turns now, again wrap in a damp towel and refrigerate another 30 minutes. Roll out again 2 more turns (total is 6 turns) and your dough is ready. You can wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.