Puff Pastry

Submitted by derMoerder

Ingredients

• 250g Flour
• 50g Melted Butter
• 3g Salt
• 150ml Ice Water
• 175g Cold Butter

Procedure

• Sift flour and salt together onto your board. Grab a measuring a cup or something(I used a nearby jar of peanut butter) and push the flour out into a ring.

• Using the back of a fork create a well inside your ring, creating a double ring.
• Pour the ice water into the middle. It helps if you have an even work surface, unlike me.

• Using two forks, mix flour into the water from the inner well.
• Do this until the water becomes a smooth, thin paste as pictured.

• Pour the melted butter into the paste a bit at a time and mix in thorougly, making sure not to let any of the butter touch raw flour.

• Work all the flour and liquid gently together into a dough. This is the détrempe. It should be fairly soft. Add a few drops more ice water if necessary to bring it together.
• Square the dough off. Take a sharp knife and cut an x about halfway deep into the dough from corner to corner. This is going to make it easier to roll it into the necessary shape later.
• Wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

• Take the dough out of the refrigerator.
• Now we need to get the cold butter into a square about as large as the dough. Fold it in a sheet of parchment just slightly smaller than the détrempe, with the seam below, and pound with your rolling pin until it's a flat square of the appropriate size. This is not only to shape the butter but make it softer to work into the dough. This is the beurrage.

• Now peel back the four points of the dough that you cut. Roll them out as pictured to make those elephant ears, leaving a bump in the middle.
• Brush excess flour from the middle of the dough and place the butter there.

• Fold the bottom flap up and over the butter, stretching slightly if necessary to cover the beurrage. Then fold in the top flap, the right and then the left, brushing off excess flour as you go along.

• It's time to turn the dough. With the dough facing you like a closed book, Roll it out only in the direction of its length. Aim for around a 1/4in thickness, and make sure not to squish the butter out of the ends of the dough.
• Once the dough is rolled out, fold it in thirds, realign it like a closed book in front of you, and repeat. Stick two knuckles into the dough to mark it as having two turns. Let the dough rest at least 20 minutes covered in the refrigerator.
• Repeat the above steps twice more for a total of six turns(don't forget to rest!) and your puff pastry dough is good to go.