Easy puff pastry recipe (rough puff pastry)

Making my own puff pastry had been on my bucket list for years. It wasn’t until my 3th book that was all about making delicious snacks and appetizers that I got started making my own rough puff pastry.

In my head making puff pastry dough was really complicated but in fact it was absolutely not complicated. And the good thing is you really only need four ingredients. Flour, butter, water and salt.

Easy puff pastry (rough puff pastry)

Let me first start by explaining what the difference is between rough puff and regular or classic puff pastry:

• the classic version of making puff pastry is by adding an entire block of butter to the dough which you then start laminating and making turns to create the flaky layers.
• Rough puff is different as you add the butter already to the flour. So essentially it is a butter-rich dough that behaves like actual puff pastry.

In terms of flavor both are equally delicious and you will still get a very flaky pastry. So that’s what the difference between the two is. And the easy version is of course less work.

As you might have guessed the method we are highlighting here today is the rough puff pastry. It’s absolutely perfect for making loads of puff pastry recipes!

The process

Now making this quick puff pastry I have already given you the pretty simple ingredients. A few things that are really important when making sheets of puff pastry.

First is that the butter and the water that you’re going to be using need to be cold and not just cold from the tap. It needs to be ice-cold water. Set the water in the fridge prior to using or add a couple of ice cubes to a bowl of water and let it sit for a bit so the water gets really cold. That’s step one.

Step two is to make sure the butter is also really cold. That works best if you already make little cubes of the butter and place those in the fridge again to cool down.

Now you first mix the dry ingredients (flour and salt) together and add the cubes of butter. Add the ice cold water and mix it briefly. The flour mixture should be absorbed into the dough but you still want to be able to see the butter cubes. So don’t knead it for too long!

Form a disk of the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Folding or laminating

Once the dough is chilled it is time to start folding it by making turns. You start by placing the dough on a lightly floured surface and – using a rolling pin – roll it out into a long rectangle.

Now fold the dough into thirds. Almost like folding a letter for an enveloppe. The picture shows you how it should look when you’ve folded it properly.

Now turn the dough a quarter of the way and roll out again to repeat the folding. This is now called a turn. So by rolling it out twice you’ve created one turn. Wrap the dough again and place back in the fridge.

You repeat this process two more times. So in total you will have three turns.

After the last turn you can cover and refrigerate the dough until you’re ready to use it. Or continue by making for instance these saucijzenbroodjes or a banketstaaf. These are both Dutch recipes but there is so much more you can make with this easy puff pastry recipe.