Last night Tom and I had some friends over for dinner and it seemed like a good opportunity try out a technique that I read about in the Los Angeles Times a few weeks ago, quick puff pastry -- or as it's sometimes called, "ruff puff." I have never attempted puff pastry before, because making classic puff pastry is a laborious process that requires folding dough around a block of butter, and repeatedly rolling and folding the dough to create hundreds of layers, all while making sure that the butter isn't too cold or too warm. Who needs that hassle when you can just head to your grocery store freezer case to buy a box of the pre-fab stuff for a few bucks?
I had never heard of "quick" puff pastry before, although apparently this technique is quite popular (try Googling "quick puff pastry" and see how many results you get). The recipe featured in the LA Times involves pulsing frozen butter in the food processor with salt and chilled all-purpose and cake flours, and then adding in cold lemon juice and ice water. The result I got was a pile of crumbs that made me wonder if it was too late to run to the grocery store to buy a box of the frozen stuff. But I was able to smush the pile of crumbs into a mound, roughly shape it into a rectangle, fold it over, roll it out, and fold it in half again. After 20 minutes in the freezer, the dough became much easier to handle, and each subsequent time I rolled and folded it, it became smoother. At the end, the dough looked just perfect.
I decided to try two recipes with the puff pastry dough. First, I made vol-au-vents, or shells. The LA Times had a recipe for vol-au-vents filled with pea shoots and herbed goat cheese that I thought would make a nice first course for our dinner. I used a 3.5-inch fluted cutter to cut out rounds of the puff pastry, and a 2-inch cutter to cut out the centers. While the shells did puff nicely in the oven, they were not large enough to hold very much (even though I pierced the bottoms with a fork, the bottoms still rose quite a bit, so the cavity of the shells was quite shallow) -- I basically filled them with herbed goat cheese and piled a mini arugula salad on top and along the side. The shell in the picture below was probably the best looking one of the batch; some of the others ended up more oval than round, or listed to the side. Still, it was a nice presentation. The pastry was very flaky and crisp, and a delicious accompaniment to the cheese and salad.
I also made a strawberry tart with the puff pastry for dessert. To make the tart, you bake a puff pastry base and fill it with orange-vanilla pastry cream and sliced strawberries, brushing the fruit with some melted jam. I served the tart with vanilla ice cream.
I wasn't a big fan of the orange-vanilla pastry cream (I think that plain vanilla, or perhaps lemon would have worked better), but this tart was still very good, with a flaky, buttery crust.
One issue I encountered with the ruff puff was that the dough did appear to rise a little unevenly; not only were some of my shells definitely tilting to one side, but as you can see in the above picture of the tart, the tart border did not rise straight up, but was slightly twisted. I think that using purchased puff pastry has much more predictable results. Still, I did get quite a sense of satisfaction from making my own puff pastry, even if I did have to take a major shortcut! The psychic and corporeal return on ruff puff is definitely worth the (relatively) minimal amount of time and effort required.
Recipes:
I had never heard of "quick" puff pastry before, although apparently this technique is quite popular (try Googling "quick puff pastry" and see how many results you get). The recipe featured in the LA Times involves pulsing frozen butter in the food processor with salt and chilled all-purpose and cake flours, and then adding in cold lemon juice and ice water. The result I got was a pile of crumbs that made me wonder if it was too late to run to the grocery store to buy a box of the frozen stuff. But I was able to smush the pile of crumbs into a mound, roughly shape it into a rectangle, fold it over, roll it out, and fold it in half again. After 20 minutes in the freezer, the dough became much easier to handle, and each subsequent time I rolled and folded it, it became smoother. At the end, the dough looked just perfect.
I decided to try two recipes with the puff pastry dough. First, I made vol-au-vents, or shells. The LA Times had a recipe for vol-au-vents filled with pea shoots and herbed goat cheese that I thought would make a nice first course for our dinner. I used a 3.5-inch fluted cutter to cut out rounds of the puff pastry, and a 2-inch cutter to cut out the centers. While the shells did puff nicely in the oven, they were not large enough to hold very much (even though I pierced the bottoms with a fork, the bottoms still rose quite a bit, so the cavity of the shells was quite shallow) -- I basically filled them with herbed goat cheese and piled a mini arugula salad on top and along the side. The shell in the picture below was probably the best looking one of the batch; some of the others ended up more oval than round, or listed to the side. Still, it was a nice presentation. The pastry was very flaky and crisp, and a delicious accompaniment to the cheese and salad.
One issue I encountered with the ruff puff was that the dough did appear to rise a little unevenly; not only were some of my shells definitely tilting to one side, but as you can see in the above picture of the tart, the tart border did not rise straight up, but was slightly twisted. I think that using purchased puff pastry has much more predictable results. Still, I did get quite a sense of satisfaction from making my own puff pastry, even if I did have to take a major shortcut! The psychic and corporeal return on ruff puff is definitely worth the (relatively) minimal amount of time and effort required.
Recipes:
- "Quick Puff Pastry" from the March 24, 2011 Los Angeles Times.
- "Fresh Berry Tart" from the March, 24, 2011 Los Angeles Times.
- "Vol-au-vents with Pea Shoots and Herbed Goat Cheese" from the March 24, 2011 Los Angeles Times.
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