Puff pastry is quite a luxury pastry, not difficult to make but it does take a long time from start to finish (roughly about 3 hours), due to rolling and resting the pastry for 30 minutes between 6 rolls of pastry.
If you do have a go, use a very strong white flour such as flour used in breadmaking – the best fat to use is pastry margarine, which is firm in texture and, unlike butter, it has a very high melting point. If you find the pastry margarine difficult to obtain, pop into a local baker and ask if you can buy a kilogram or two.
Always roll your dough into a rectangle and fold three times after each roll always in the same direction and turn in a quarter turn to the left before rolling again. Hopefully this will allow the pastry to rise straight up when being baked.
After 6 complete rolls you should end up with a lovely block of puff pastry — pastry of a thousand leaves that will melt in your mouth.
When baking, steam is created from the melting fat that should force the pastry to rise in many very thin layers. You can help the process by sprinkling a little cold water over the baking tray to create extra steam. Also when baking, you will need quite a hot oven or you may find your pastry will melt away and not rise at all.
Puff pastry gives a beautiful luxury pastry to top meat pies and to make beautiful sausage rolls, vol-au-vents, cream horns, Eccles cakes and many, many more. And, save all your pastry trimmings as they are perfect for making mouth-watering cheese straws.
Pastry making tips
We have put together some great tips for making perfect pastry every time, which includes information on the type of flour used and how you need to give the pastry time to rest!
Choux pastry
This pastry recipe shows how to make a choux pastry. This choux pastry recipe can be used to make delicious recipes such as profiteroles.
Tomato tart
This recipe for a tomato tart is an easy tart recipe to make and makes a great starter. This uses baby tomatoes and Dijon mustard.
Suet pastry
This pastry recipe is for a suet pastry and can be used to make great dishes such as steak and kidney pudding.
Vol au vent
This pastry recipe is for pastry vol au vents. This vol au vent recipe can be used to make vol au vents that can be filled with foods of your choice.
Jam and lemon tarts
This tarts recipe is for jam tarts and lemon tarts. This recipe for jam tarts shows how to give your jam and lemon tarts a smooth professional finish.
Pastry making tips
There are several types of pastry that we can use in the kitchen. It is very easy just to pop out to the local supermarket to buy packets of ready-made pastry, but we can make most pastries quite quickly ourselves at home, even more so if we use a processor.
Shortcrust pastry
This pastry recipe is for a shortcrust pastry. If looking for recipes for pastry, this rich shortcrust pastry recipe will be ideal and can be used to make great recipes such as a golden syrup tart.
Chicken and bacon pie
This chicken recipe is for a chicken and bacon pie. This chicken pie recipe is a great combination of chicken and pastry.
Chocolate eclairs
This chocolate recipe is for chocolate eclairs. This chocolate eclair recipe makes for a great cake to enjoy with friends and family.