1,236 easy and fully explained recipes, with 25,103 photos and 76 videos

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée)

Puff pastry is an incredible assembly of thin layers of butter enclosed in thin layers of dough. After cooking this give a succession of thin crisp pastry leaves that produce exceptional desserts or pies. It's a jewel of French patisserie.

Making your own puff pastry is not very difficult, it's just a little work with a good recipe (like this one!). This recipe is for quick puff pastry ("feuilletage rapide") perfect for beginners.

392K 6 60 4.5

Last modified on: January 19^th 2011

Keywords for this recipe:Pastry Puff pastry Layers Butter Leaves French

For 1 kg 100 g, you will need:

0 500 g flour
1 200 g butter
2 200 ml water
3 1 teaspoon white (spirit) vinegar (optional)
4 1 teaspoon fine (or table) salt
5 200 g butter
Total weight: 1,112 grams

Change these quantities to make: 550 g 1 kg 100 g 2 kg 200 g 3 kg 300 g

Change measures: Metric

Metric weight Metric volumes

How long does it take?

Time required for this recipe:

Preparation	Resting	Start to finish
45 min.	2 hours	2 hours 45 min.

At what time:

When will I finish if I start the recipe at ... ?
When should I start for the recipe to be ready at ... ?
Work this out...

Step by step recipe

Stage 1 - 5 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #1

Mix 200 ml water and 1 teaspoon fine (or table) salt, if possible add 1 teaspoon white (spirit) vinegar to prevent dough from turning grey.

Stage 2 - 5 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #2

In a mixer bowl, pour 500 g flour and 200 g butter cut into pieces.

Knead on low speed for one minute, then add the water+vinegar+salt mixture.

Stage 3 - 1 hour

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #3

Stop as soon as dough is smooth, this dough is called a "détrempe" (soaked or softened).

Form it into slab, cover with plastic film, and put in the fridge for one hour.

Stage 4 - 5 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #4

After this time, remove dough, unwrap it, then roll it out on your work surface into a large rectangle.

Stage 5 - 1 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #5

Measure length of rectangle, and make a small mark with your finger at the 2/3 point.

Stage 6 - 5 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #6

Put 200 g butter between two sheets of plastic film, and hit it with your rolling pin...

Stage 7

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #7

...until you get a butter "sheet" which is a little narrower than the dough and 2/3 the length.

Stage 8 - 5 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #8

Lay the butter sheet on the dough, starting at the small mark you made before.

You should now have butter on 2/3 of the dough, 1/3 empty.

Stage 9

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #9

Fold up this 1/3 on top of the butter.

Stage 10 - 5 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #10

Then fold over again onto the final 1/3.

You have done "one simple turn", which means that you now have 2 butter layers inside 3 dough layers.

Stage 11 - 1 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #11

Turn the pastry a quarter turn.

Stage 12 - 5 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #12

Roll out into a long regular strip.

Stage 13 - 1 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #13

Remove any excess of flour with a Short-handled brush or a pastry brush (we do this because too much flour can hinder the layering of the pastry).

Stage 14 - 2 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #14

Fold strip in from both ends to meet in the centre.

Stage 15 - 5 min.

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #15

Then fold this in half.

You have done "one double turn" or "wallet turn".

Stage 16 - 1 hour

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #16

Cover pastry with plastic film and leave to rest in the fridge for one hour.

This sequence of "double turn" + 1 hour rest, needs to be done twice more to get: 1 simple turn and 3 double turns.

Stage 17

Puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) : Photo of step #17

Your puff pastry is now ready to use. Cut into three pieces (of about 300g) and wrap each in plastic film until use, or freeze (see below).

Remarks

Puff pastry should not be kept in the fridge for too long (in spite of the vinegar), 2 or 3 days maximum. But it can easily be frozen, in which case don't do the final double turn and freeze at this stage. When needed, remove from freezer, leave to thaw in the fridge overnight, and do the final double turn just before use.

You wonder how-many layers there are? Here is the solution: after the first turn there are 2 butter layers between 3 dough layers, and each double turn multiplies by four. So after the first one we get 12 layers, 48 at the second, and 192 at the third.

How does it work? In the heat of the oven, the layers of pastry cook and turn brown and crisp, at the same time the butter melts (helping pastry to brown) and the water inside turns to steam. This steam in trapped in the pastry, so the entire pastry inflates to become puff pastry.

Keeping

1 or 2 days in the fridge, folded in a plastic film.

Nutritional information

Whole recipe
Energetic value	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
4,741 Kcal or 19,850 Kj	48 gr	370 gr	341 gr
237 %	18 %	35 %	52 %

Per 100 g
Energetic value	Proteins	Carbohydrates	Fats
426 Kcal or 1,784 Kj	4 gr	33 gr	31 gr
21 %	2 %	3 %	5 %

% are calculated relative to a Recommended Dietary Intake or RDI of 2000 k-calories or 8400 k-joules by day for a woman (change to a man).

How much will it cost?

For 1 kg 100 g : 3.34 €

Change currency:

Note : These prices are only approximate.

Some recipes that use this recipe

Thin tomato jelly and avocado tart

For this sophisticated recipe, we'll be preparing a disc of tomato jelly to sit on a puff pastry base. This is topped with slices of avocado in a lime dressing.
9,294 5 hours 16 min.

Fine multi-tomato tart

This simple but very elegant tart makes the most of different tomato varieties. Their diversity allows us to create a multi-coloured tart, featuring all their attractive shades.
19K 59 min.

Strawberry feuilleté

This elegant French dessert is not quite a tart. The base is a circle of puff pastry baked and caramelized, then topped when cold with a thin layer of lime-flavoured confectioner's custard and beautiful fresh strawberries.
27K3.8 43 min.

Crusty cockle tart

A small puff pastry tart case filled with cockles in a cream and egg-yolk sauce ("a la poulette" in French).
84K4.3 2 hours 52 min.

Vol-au-vent cases

Vol-au-vents, whether large or bite-sized, need a special pastry case that is hollow to take the filling. Here is how to prepare these delicate cases using puff pastry.
216K4.1 44 min.

See all recipes that use it

Source

After Gaston Lenôtre.

This recipe uses (among others)

	Flour: You can get more informations, or check-out other recipes which use it, for example: Coconut tuiles, Shortcrust pastry (pâte brisée), Sauce Normande (for fish), Cornmeal baps for Anne, Galette Charentaise, ... All
	Butter: You can get more informations, or check-out other recipes which use it, for example: Cream sauce with Vin Jaune, Gratin Dauphinois, Sorrel soup, Oatmeal cake, Oat shortbread biscuits, ... All
	Water: You can get more informations, or check-out other recipes which use it, for example: Leek and Jerusalem artichoke soup, Turnip and Jerusalem artichoke soup, Cassoulet, Italian hot chocolate , Pitta bread, ... All
	Fine (or table) salt: You can get more informations, or check-out other recipes which use it, for example: Tomato and cream cheese terrine, Rabbit terrine, Cramique, Home-made terrine of foie gras, Flamiche, ... All

Other recipes you may also like

French croissants

In this famous and highly technical recipe from a piece of yeast-based flaky dough we are going to cut and shape ("roll") croissants.
538K 24.3 2 hours 34 min. June 26^th 2019

Big knife-cut chips (French fries)

These chips (French fries) are made from potatoes steamed then fried in their skins. Usually we make big ones (3 times the usual French fry) and serve 2 or 3 per guest.
246K4.1 1 hour 19 min. February 21^th 2011

Coconut-vanilla cream for Elsa

A dessert in three layers: a first of smooth vanilla cream, a second of coconut cream (also very smooth), and to finish, a thin crunchy layer of coconut tuiles. In the spirit of crème brulée: break through the crisp surface layer to discover the smooth melting coconut and vanilla creams beneath. A...
189K3.8 4 hours 58 min. February 21^th 2011

Fruit crumble

A fruit pudding: very easy to do and delicious: just a layer of fruit with a golden crunchy topping.
301K4.0 1 hour 11 min. February 21^th 2011

4 pears salad with vanilla

It's a very easy recipe, everything depends on the choice of differents kinds of pears all fully ripe, to give a delicious contrast in the mouth.
189K4.2 37 min. February 21^th 2011

News list of cooking-ez.com

Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.

Post your comment or question

Your 6 comments or questions on this recipe

You're right, there was a mistake in the recipe, but now fixed.
Thank you.
Posted by jh may 14^th 2020 at 11:27 (n° 6)
Step 1, you wrote "Mix 500 g flour" but the photo shows 1 or 8 (I don't know the unit) water, and, on step 2, it seems that the water, rather than the flour had been used in step 1...
Posted by Henri may 14^th 2020 at 08:36 (n° 5)
Using a knife.
Posted by jh january 19^th 2011 at 07:28 (n° 4)
How do i cut my dough?
Posted by Anonymous january 18^th 2011 at 20:09 (n° 3)
That's the case of all pastry with butter inside, without going to the fridge butter will be soft, too soft, and so your dough rather impossible to roll out.
Posted by jh june 6^th 2010 at 07:43 (n° 2)
Why does it need to be rested in the fridge?
Posted by Anonymous june 5^th 2010 at 23:07 (n° 1)

Follow this recipe (as 7 people already do)

If you are interested in this recipe, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the recipe is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.

Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.

Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.