Basic recipe #4: Pȃte feuilletée (puff pastry)

The next challenge of the week calls for pȃte feuilletée otherwise known as puff pastry. The first mention of this usually has home cooks running for the hills so I am going to start off with a note of reassurance: it's OK to buy and use ready made puff pastry. Really. Yes, it is. However, homemade puff pastry, is not hard or complicated, but merely takes a long time as you have to rest the pastry a lot.

I made my own for the challenge and so took the opportunity to document it and include it here as a basic recipe. Even if you decide to buy it ready-made, it's a fascinating insight into the method behind, and I always think things taste so much better if you realize the sheer amount of work that went into them.

Pȃte feuilletée is, in essence, a basic dough (la détrempe) that is laminated with butter. Through a process of folding and turning, known as le tourage, 729 fine layers of butter and pastry are created which puff up magically to form the characteristic texture when baked.

Pȃte feuilletée

Active time: 30 mins

Total time: 4 hrs

250g  / 2 cups flour
120g / 1/2 cup water
5g / 1 tsp salt
extra flour for dusting
250g  / 1 1/4 cups unsalted butter and room temperature


La détrempe

Ingredients for la détrempe

Place the flour in a mixing bowl. Dissolve the salt in a little water and pour into the bowl. Add more, but not all of the water and mix the dough with your hand. You are trying to achieve a homogeneous dough, and this will require more or less water depending on the level of humidity in the air. Add more of the water until this has been achieved. Then form the dough into a ball, wrap it in cling film, and refrigerate for 2 hours.

la détrempe before resting

Le tourage

1. Place the dough on a floured work surface and cut a cross in the top using a sharp knife.

2. Starting in the middle, fold the corners of the dough outwards like the petals of a flower.

3. Using a rolling pin, flatten out the petals, but be sure to leave a thick mound of dough in the middle.

4. Place your butter in the middle on top of the mound.

5. Fold in the petals to completely enclose the butter, like a parcel.

6. Very gently roll the dough to form a long thin strip. Be very careful that none of the butter manages to break through the dough.

7. Fold the bottom third and the top third of the dough over each other into the centre of the dough.

8. Turn the dough so that the seam is to the right. This is one turn.

9. Repeat the process of rolling ...

10. ... and folding, until you have completed a second turn.

11. With the flats of your fingers, being very careful not to pierce the dough with your nails, make two dents in the dough. This will remind you that it has had two turns. Now, wrap it in plastic film again and put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. At this point there are nine layers of butter in the pastry.

12. Repeat stages 8-11 twice more and mark the dough with four dents to signify that it has had four turns (81 layers) and then return it to the fridge for another 30 minutes.

13. When they dough has rested give it another two turns (steps 8-11) and then the dough is ready to be used immediately. It will now have 729 layers of butter. Bon appetit!

Basic recipe #3: Biscuit joconde

Pieces of biscuit joconde cut out and ready for use

The word biscuit in French has a wider use than it does in British English, where it has the meaning 'cookie' (for my US readers) or in American English, where it means something like 'scone' (for my British readers). In French, it could be used for all of the above, but it also has the meaning of 'sponge cake', particularly thin layers of it used as the basis for other pastries.

There are many slight variations of biscuit, such as the plain genoise, the dacquoise—somewhat akin to an almond meringue, and a cousin to the macaron—and the biscuit joconde, most famously used in the Opéra cake I mentioned last week. A well-baked joconde has an unexpected feather lightness, with a fragile flavour lent by the almonds and it takes on the character and flavor of whichever cream it's layered with, or whichever drink it's impregnated with, depending on the recipe.

For this week's challenge, I have chosen to use a biscuit joconde and so I am adding the recipe for it here, to our library of basic recipes.

Biscuit joconde is uniformly 3-5mm (1/5") thick

Biscuit joconde

Active time: 10 mins
Total time: 20 mins

30g / 2 tbsp butter

20g / 1 tbsp flour

75 g / 3/4 cup icing sugar
75g / 3/4 cup ground almonds

2 whole eggs

2 egg whites

a pinch of salt

12g / 2/14 tsp caster sugar

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200° C / 390° F; grease and line a lipped baking tray with greaseproof paper.

2.  Melt the butter and then let it cool.

3. Sift the flour, icing sugar, and ground almonds into a bowl; add the whole eggs and beat until you have a light creamy mixture. 

4. Place the egg whites in a bowl with the salt and caster sugar; whisk until they form stiff peaks. 

5. Fold the egg whites into the other mixture, being really careful to keep as much air as possible. This is what will give the biscuit it's light character. When they are combined, add the melted butter and continue folding until it is incorporated. 

6. Place the mixture into the baking tray and spread with a spatula until is it even; bake for 8‑10 mins. Let it cool, remove the paper and the biscuit is ready to use. 

Basic recipe #2: Pȃte à choux

choux buns

My recipe this week also calls for pȃte à choux  or choux pastry, which will be used again and again, so I am filing it here under a 'basic recipe' post. This doesn't feel like a pastry in the traditional sense, but is rather a mixture of milk, water, and butter that is thickened with flour. It is the basis of chocolate éclairs, profiteroles, and also the ubiquitous chouquettes.

Chouquettes are tiny puffs of choux covered in giant grains of sugar, and eaten for breakfast, or as a four o'clock snack. The bakery opposite my apartment always has a tempting stack of them in a basket on the counter, pleading with you to take a couple home with your daily bread. I regularly oblige. The neutral, creamy flavour of the little balls of air is sweetened perfectly by the perles du sucre, which look beautiful too.

I remember Mrs. Cook—real name—my High School cookery teacher, talking of the mysteries of choux and propagating the myth of its difficulty. As always with French pâtisserie, if you respect the method and quantities, it's really not hard. Try the recipe below and you will see, that it's a quick and easy way to impress your friends and family. When you have finished reading, scroll down for a surprise.

Pȃte à choux

Active time: 10 mins
Total time: 10 mins

125 ml / 1/2 cup milk
125 ml / 1/2 cup water
100g / 1 stick butter
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
150g / 1 cup plain flour
4 eggs

1. Put the milk, water, butter, salt, and sugar into a saucepan and bring to the boil.
2. Remove from the heat and add the flour all in one go; stir with a wooden spoon until it is combined.
3. Return the pan to a medium heat and stir until the mixture forms a ball and comes away from the pan, about 1 minute.
4. Leave to cool for about 1 minute and then add the eggs individually and stir them into the mixture with a wooden spoon. Don't worry if it looks like the mixture has curdled at this point. Just keep stirring and the egg will miraculously disappear into the mixture. When all the eggs are combined, voilà, the pastry is ready to be used.

BONUS RECIPE

Chouquettes

Active time: 10 mins
Total time: 30 mins

pȃte à choux (see recipe above)
pearl sugar

1. Prepare a pȃte à choux. Using a piping bag, pipe small balls of the pastry onto a lightly greased baking sheet. The amount of choux pastry above should make about 24 balls of 2cm / 1 inch diameter.
2. Sprinkle the balls with pearl sugar. If it doesn't stick, press a few grains on by hand.
3. Bake at 180°C / 350°F for about 20 minutes. Leave to cool on a wire rack and then enjoy.

TIP: If you can't find pearl sugar, then wait until the puffs are cooked and cooled and then sprinkle them with confectioner's sugar.

Basic recipe #1: Crème pȃtissière

The recipe I am working on this week calls for crème pȃtissière. This is no big surprise, since this thick, creamy custard forms the basis of many classic French cakes such as éclairs, fraisier, mille feuille, and so on—have I got you drooling yet? If you don't know what these are, you will in the next few weeks, as all of them will feature on this blog.

So, rather than repeating the recipe over and over, I thought I would give you my version of crème pȃtissière, now. I have adjusted this recipe over the years, primarily cutting the amount of sugar, because the classic recipe is very sweet and I feel this version suits modern tastes better.

Crème pȃtissière

Active time: 20 mins

Total time: 1 1/2 hours

½ vanilla pod

250ml / 1 cup milk

3 egg yolks

50g / 1/4 cup caster sugar

20g / 2 tbsp flour

20g / 1 1/2 tbsp butter

1. Place the vanilla pod and milk in a saucepan and bring to the boil; remove from the heat and leave the pod to infuse for about 10 mins; remove the pod and discard. 

2. Beat the egg yolks together with the caster sugar in a mixing bowl; then sift the flour into the bowl and mix until smooth. 

3. Pour the milk into the mixing bowl and combine with a whisk; then put the entire mixure into a saucepan and bring to the boil, stirring all the time with the whisk; simmer, still stirring, for one minute. 

4. Remove the mixture from the heat and add the butter; stir until combined. Cover the mixture with cling film which should touch the surface of the cream to stop a skin forming and leave to cool completely.