Puff pastry what is it used for

Serve this tart with a dressed green salad. Find the recipe for rosemary mushroom tart at Vegan Family Recipes. Use ready rolled puff pastry and cut around a saucer for size, then top with your favourite toppings.

Find the recipe for puff pizza pie with pesto at Tinned Tomatoes. These tarts are actually a sweet savoury tart. Perfect for lunch or starter served with salad. Unlike the other recipes, in this one the pastry tarts are baked then the filling is added once they have cooled a little. A wonderful combination of flavours and textures. Find the recipe for balsamic peach and Ricotta tarts at The Veg Space.

The mouth-watering flavours of seasonal berries although you can use frozen gently sweetened and topped with flaky puff pastry. Find the recipe for easy mixed berry and apple pot pies at Fuss Free Flavours. Palmers are an indulgent tea time treat and perfect with a cuppa, but did you know how easy they are to make with a roll of ready rolled puffed pastry? Simply top your pastry with your filling, spreading it evenly, then roll in from each side to meet in the middle and slice before baking.

These tempting treats are filled with Nutella and are dairy free. Find the recipe for Nutella Palmers at Thinly Spread. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for more cooking inspiration. After the dough has been kneaded it is covered and left in a cool place to relax. This helps prevent distortion and shrinking in the final product.

After relaxing, the dough must cool for the lamination stage. This paste is made up of many very thin layers of dough and fat, which are made by rolling and re-rolling the dough in a similar way to making puff paste. The tastiest fat is butter and it leaves no aftertaste.

The butter must be cool, but pliable. If it is too soft it soaks into the dough and layers will not form. One way to add the roll in fat is to use the English method. The dough is then given four half turns.

This is done by placing the paste on the bench so that the unfolded sides of the dough are parallel to the edge of the bench. The paste is then carefully rolled away from the edge of the bench into another rectangle and then folded into three, as in figure 2b.

It is then covered and placed in a fridge for minutes. Repeat this twice more. Finally the dough is rolled out ready for cutting.

This is cut into triangles that are rolled up, bent into the traditional crescent, put on a baking sheet and left to rise until they have doubled in size. Before being baked, croissants are brushed with a beaten egg so the baked croissant looks golden. During baking the dough rises a little more, as bread does during breadmaking.

This is called ovenspring. The moisture in the dough puffs up the pastry when it converts to steam. The steam is trapped between the layers of fat, turning the fat and dough laminations into flaky layers so the croissant looks like a cross between bread and puff pastry. All sorts of fillings can be added; popular ones include almond paste, fruit, nuts or custard.

Like croissants, danish pastries are then put on a baking tray and left to rise until about double in size. Toppings such as chopped nuts may be added and a beaten egg may be brushed on the surface just before baking. Danish pastries rise up and form flaky layers like croissants. After baking, the pastries are usually glazed to make them look attractive and to add flavour. Usually the glaze is diluted apricot jam, which is brushed on while the pastry is still hot.

When cool the pastries may also be iced. Lemon icing is a delicious and popular icing. It is important to use the correct ingredients and the right pastry making techniques to make a good puff pastry. The main ingredients are flour, water, salt, dough fat and fat. Some protein becomes gluten when wet and this makes the paste elastic and strong and capable of forming layers when cooked. Cool water must be used to prevent the fat from becoming oily.

The water must also taste good, i. Salt is added to strengthen the gluten and improve the flavour. Fat is the second most important ingredient when making a good pastry. Butter is tastiest, but there are some excellent pastry margarines specially produced for making pastry products. Fat must be kept cool so that it does not become soft and oily and mix into the dough.

Other ingredients are sometimes added to give the pastry a distinctive look and taste. Eggs improve the colour of the pastry, and a little raising agent such as baking powder strengthens the gluten and increases the height of the pastry.

When making puff pastry it is important to rest the pastry. During resting, gluten relaxes and become elastic again, making rolling easier and preventing the pastry from shrinking and becoming misshapen during baking. Correct rolling is essential. The edges of the pastry must be straight and the corners square. The terms full, three-quarter and half are used when describing the amount of fat in the pastry. Full has equal weight of fat and flour, three-quarter has three-quarters of the weight of fat to flour, and half has half the weight of fat to flour.

More fat makes the pastry softer to eat but reduces its height. First a dough is made using a little dough fat and then more fat is added between the dough layers. The dough and fat are then laminated, which involves folding and rolling the dough and fat a few times to make many layers of dough and fat. The fat stays as separate layers and does not mix into the dough. The quickest way is the Scotch or Blitz method.

It is suitable for making pastry for pies, sausage rolls and pasties. Flour, salt, cold water and dough fat are mixed together in a mixing bowl. Walnut-sized lumps of fat are then added to the bowl and are mixed in a little, to ensure large lumps of fat are left whole in the dough.

The fat is distributed throughout the dough in flat discs, rather than a continuous sheet as with the other methods. As a result this pastry does not always rise evenly and so is not suitable for products that must look exceptionally good. In the English method the flour, salt, water and dough fat are mixed together.

This dough is rolled into a long rectangular shape, three times as long as wide. Two-thirds of the dough is covered by dabs of butter. The third without butter is folded into the middle first then the other end is folded on top. The French method — The main feature of the French method is that a square layer of fat is wrapped in the basic dough.

After testing it is rolled into a square, making each side half the distance between opposite corners of the dough. The fat is placed in the centre of the doughs in the diagram below and the corners folded into the centre so they meet and cover the join. The paste is then folded again.

Once the fat is placed on the dough during lamination, the layers are folded and rolled a number of times until you have the number of layers you want. Phyllo dough sheets are almost as thin as a leaf, which is actually where it gets its name from the world filo or fillo means "leaf" in Greek. Phyllo is common throughout Greece, Turkey, and much of the Middle East. It's likely most famous for being used in baklava , and like puff pastry, it can also be found in the freezer aisle.

While using store-bought puff pastry is certainly convenient, making it from scratch allows you to observe the magic of puff pastry rising in the oven without the help of any leavening agents.

So if you're in the mood for a weekend in baking project, read our guide on how to make puff pastry dough from scratch.

Making puff pastry from scratch is the hard part — cooking with it is easier than you would think! And it's an easy way to add something new to weeknight dinners. Read on for our tips on how to work with frozen puff pastry. Frozen puff pastry sheets come in a long rectangular box in the frozen section of most grocery stores; sheet sizes will vary, so check the dimensions on the box.

Puff pastry is often found next to the pie crust and other frozen doughs. You may also be able to find packaged puff pastry cups for savory appetizers and delicate desserts. Keep a package of frozen puff pastry in your freezer at all times for easy last-minute baking. Store-bought puff pastry should be stored in the freezer until use. To use, follow the thawing instructions on the box.

Homemade puff pastry can be refrigerated for a couple days or stored in the freezer for up to a month. Be sure to rewrap what you don't use tightly in plastic wrap. You can also store uncooked pastries in an airtight container in the freezer for up to two weeks.