31 Puff Puff Pastry Recipes You'll Wanna Pass Around (2024)

FAQs

Do you have to thaw puff pastry before baking? ›

Frozen puff pastry is a convenient alternative to homemade puff pastry, but it does require a little advance planning since it can't actually be used in its frozen state. It needs to be thawed before it can be baked into something delicious, and doing so overnight in the fridge is the best approach.

Then unroll the pastry and place it carefully on top of the pie dish - place it on the rim of the dish rather than on the filling. I.e. the pastry should not be touching the filling. Pinch and crimp the corners and edges to hold the pastry in place.

Using Your Puff Pastry

You can use it as a crust for a free-form tart, fold it into breakfast turnovers, bake it into cups for easy appetizers, or cut it into bite-sized shapes for appetizers.

Always preheat your oven for a minimum of 15-20 minutes before baking, because Puff Pastry depends on even heat to rise and puff. Place pastries 1 inch apart. If you want a flaky thin and crispy pastry that's not very puffy, prick the unbaked Puff Pastry all over with a fork, which lets steam escape while baking.

The Los Angeles Times notes that butter can still be used as a "wash," but it yields different results than egg: Instead of imparting color or crispness, it offers a more luxurious flavor and softness.

The main differences between puff pastry and phyllo dough are their fat content and preparation. Puff pastry is a laminated dough that gets its signature airy puff from layers of butter, while phyllo dough is comparatively low-fat. Phyllo dough is mostly flour and water and can dry out easily.

When left at room temperature too long, puff pastry's main ingredient, butter, starts to soften and melt. This leaves the dough sticky and really hard to work with, and may result in the pastry not holding its shape while baking.

Bake the pastries until the puff pastry is a golden brown. This should take about 15 minutes, but keep your eyes on the baking process. When the pastries are golden brown, remove from the oven, and allow them to cool on a cooling rack.

One of the fool-proof ways to ensure a crisp bottom pie crust is to do what is called blind baking. This simply means that you bake the crust—either fully if you are adding a custard or cream that won't be cooked, or partially if the whole pie needs to bake—before adding the filling.

With docking, the holes allow steam to escape, so the crust should stay flat against the baking dish when it isn't held down by pie weights or a filling. Otherwise the crust can puff up, not only impacting appearance but also leaving you with less space for whatever filling you have planned.

How do you stop puff pastry from going soggy on the bottom of a pie? ›

A metal pie pan placed on a preheated surface will set the bottom crust quickest; once cooked, the liquids from the filling above won't soak in, and as a result: no soggy bottom. (Using metal is crucial: Glass or ceramic pans don't transfer heat as efficiently, so they can be accomplices to a sad, soggy bottom.)

Egg wash is the most reliable but it can be very thick and sticky. Milk wash will go on more evenly but it can soak into pastry and make it weaker. Melted butter works nicely after the crust has set but it can make the crust greasy and weaker.

Puff pastry is mainly made by 3 important ingredients, flour, water, and fat (butter or oil). Unfortunately, I learned that butter and oil, consist of 100% fat. I've successfully created puff pastry using oil in a pan before. It works!

The dough, at its simplest, is a mixture of flour, water, salt and butter. Many recipes, mine included, also include a little lemon juice or vinegar and a touch of sugar. The acid helps to tenderise the dough and also helps make the dough a touch easier to roll out.

Shortcrust pastry can sometimes brown unevenly, with some areas becoming too dark and others remaining pale. This can happen if the oven temperature is too high, if the pastry is not rolled evenly, or if it's placed on a rack that's too high or too low in the oven.

About a third of puff and shortcrust pastry is fat, and if it's made with butter or palm oil, it contains more saturated fat than if it's made with unsaturated fats such as sunflower spread. These are our most commonly used pastries, but it's worth trying to keep them for a treat.

General rules

Keep everything as cool as possible otherwise the fat may melt which would spoil the finished dish. Introduce as much air as possible during making. Allow to relax after making to allow the fat to harden. Handle the pastry as little as possible.

Puff pastry is high in fat. Each 1-oz. serving of puff pastry contains 11 g of total fat. Of this, only 2 g comes from saturated fat, which can increase your risk of high cholesterol.