1,446 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 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.

442K 6× 4.3/5 based on 63 reviews

Last modified on: January 19^th 2011

Keywords for this recipe:

For 1 kg 100 g, you will need:

1 500 g flour
2 200 g butter
3 200 ml water
4 1 teaspoon white (spirit) vinegar (optional)
5 1 teaspoon fine (or table) salt
6 200 g butter
Total weight: 1,107 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

Times for this recipe

Preparation: 45 min.

Resting: 2 hours

All in all: 2 hours 45 min.

When should you start or finish this recipe?

If you start now, at , you will finish around : ?.Change start time

To finish around 7pm, you'll need to have started before: .Change end time

Step by step recipe

Stage 1 - 5 min.

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.

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

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.

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

Stage 5 - 1 min.

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

Stage 6 - 5 min.

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

Stage 7

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

Stage 8 - 5 min.

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

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

Stage 10 - 5 min.

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.

Turn the pastry a quarter turn.

Stage 12 - 5 min.

Roll out into a long regular strip.

Stage 13 - 1 min.

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.

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

Stage 15 - 5 min.

Then fold this in half.

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

Stage 16 - 1 hour

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

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.

Source: After Gaston Lenôtre.

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
428 Kcal or 1,792 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).

Possible allergens in this recipe: Gluten, Milk, Sulfites

How much will it cost?

For 1 kg 100 g : 3.34 €

Change currency:

Note: Be careful, these prices are only an estimate, you can consult the table of prices by ingredients used for this estimate.

Some other recipes using this recipeSee them all 72

Apple Pie

This classic of family cooking is quite simple: just a puff pastry "shell" sealing in lightly sweetened slices of apple. During cooking, the fruit softens to resemble stewed apple. Serve warm, if possible, to enjoy at its best.
62K3.7 54 min.

Apple semelles (flat apple tarts)

The French semelle is a flat rectangular tart with a base of puff pastry. In this version, a layer of stewed apple is spread on the pastry, then topped with finely-sliced fruit.
150K4.3 1 hour 5 min.

Epiphany galette

Here is the recipe for the very classic but delicious "galette des rois" (Epiphany galette) in puff or flaky pastry (pâte feuilletée) with almond cream or frangipane . You will also see some professional tips to easily handle the dough, and obtain a nice and regular galette.
280K 24.5 3 hours 8 min.

Smart plum tart

This is a very simple tart recipe that combines the flavours of plums and hazelnuts. It stays crisp after cooking because it is baked in two stages.
21K 1 hour 20 min.

Small cheese and bacon rolls

These small aperitif snacks can be prepared in advance and heated at the last minute, or served cold.
351K5 1 hour 23 min.

This recipe uses (among others)

Other recipes you may also like

French baguettes

This classic of French baking is rather different from the recipe for leavened bread, it's a question of making a good crust and light crumb along the whole length. To succeed, you should know that there are two secrets: water first of all (much more than for normal bread), and the working of the...
October 24^th 20171.1M 364.7 5 hours 6 min.

Brioche dough

It's a soft and rich dough, with butter and eggs which give a smooth and incredibly tasty brioche. This is the basic recipe for brioche dough, used for all other brioche-based recipes on the site.
September 16^th 2020515K 44.2 14 hours 27 min.

How to bake blind

This method allows you to cook a tart case, and then fill with a preparation which may or may not need further cooking (fruit, chocolate, crème patissière , etc...).
May 6^th 2017911K5 1 hour 40 min.

Rémoulade dressing

This dressing is a kind of mayonnaise with vinegar, used for some salads like celeriac rémoulade. Usually it is prepared from mayonnaise, but here is another version, simpler and just as tasty.
October 3^rd 2010869K3.9 6 min.

French custard tart

Custard pie is made with a shortcrust pastry base, and filled with an egg vanilla "custard" mix (prepared beforehand). Filling and pastry cook together in the oven. It's a great classic of the French bakery, found in all good shops.
July 13^th 2022436K 234.3 1 hour 10 min.

News list of cooking-ez.com

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

The 6 comments already posted 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.