Rough Puff Pastry – Step by Step
This easy rough puff pastry recipe is so much faster than traditional puff pastry but it doesn’t skimp on taste or quality. It can be ready to use in less than 3 hours.
Rough Puff Pastry
Homemade puff pastry is 100% worth making. It tastes delicious thanks to the copious amounts of butter in the dough. The dough is rolled and folded multiple times which creates layers. As it is baked, the water in the butter evaporates and pushes these layers up. The trick to keeping it flaky is to have the butter cold. That way the heat of the oven can quickly evaporate the water. If the butter melts into the pastry while you’re rolling it, you won’t get the layers of dough. This recipe makes a large amount of pastry that can be portioned and frozen for up to three months. It’s perfect to pull out whenever you need it.
Rough puff vs traditional puff pastry
Regular puff pastry is made with two separate components. The détrempe and the beurrage. The détrempe is the name for the dough mixture which encases the beurrage. The beurrage is the name for a butter packet made predominantly of butter. It’s sometimes mixed with a bit of flour for easier rolling. The butter packet is tucked into the dough and then the dough+butter out into a rectangle. The rectangle is folded into thirds and rolled out again, and folded again. This is done 6 times in total. This is called lamination.
Rough puff pastry also undergoes lamination, but the biggest difference is that there is no separate butter packet. For rough puff pastry, cold butter is mixed right into the dough, in big rough chunks. The dough is rolled out and folded just like a traditional puff and as it’s done, the butter is dispersed into the dough. Rough puff pastry won’t give as even layers as traditional puff, but as long as you don’t let the butter melt it will still give you beautiful flaky layers. The resting time for rough puff pastry is a lot shorter than traditional puff too.
Inverse puff pastry is another type. It’s similar to traditional puff, but instead of the butter packet being encased inside the dough, with inverse pastry, the dough is encased inside the butter. See how to make inverse puff pastry.
Ingredients you’ll need
Find the ingredient amounts in the printable recipe card at the bottom of this post. Here is a run down of what you will need for
The butter you use doesn’t need to be fancy. It just needs to have at least 80% butterfat, which most supermarket butter does. You can also use salted butter, though the salt in the main dough may need reducing. The butter content in this pastry is very high, meaning there are many layers of butter in the dough. This will achieve extra flaky pastry.
I use vinegar or lemon juice to add a little acid helps to create a more tender pastry by breaking down the gluten bonds in the dough. This helps keep the dough pliable when rolling without needing to rest between folds.
Step by step instructions
1. Cube the butter
Chop the butter in cubes and chill them to make sure they’re cold. Then add them to a large bowl with flour and salt.
2. Chop butter into flour
Use a pastry cutter to roughly cut the butter into the flour, but not too small. A few small pieces are fine but the rest can be left in fairly large chunks. If the butter is melting at any point, place the bowl in the refrigerator.
3. Add in the liquid
Slowly drizzle in the iced water and vinegar or lemon juice. Use a spatula or your hands to combine it into a shaggy dough and add in enough water as needed but not too much. Add any extra water in slowly, a tablespoon at a time.
4. Form into a mound
It should hold together easily when pressed but not be sticky. If the dough is super crumbly, add a bit more water. You don’t want it sticky though.
Form the dough into a mound and let it chill in the fridge for 10 minutes. If your room temperature is very cold, you can begin rolling right away.
Laminating
5. Roll into a rectangle
Roll the dough into an 8x12inch rectangle. You will see large chunks of butter in the dough.
Fold the top third of the dough down to the middle.
6. Fold into pamphlet
Fold the bottom third up to make a pamphlet or business letter shape. That was Fold 1.
7. Turn and roll again
Turn the dough a quarter turn and roll it back out into a rectangle and repeat the folding. That was fold 2.
8. Repeat
Repeat this process three more times so you 6 folds in total. You can trim the edges of the dough to neaten them when folding to make the lamination more even.
If you are making this on a cold day then there is no need for any fridge rest in between the rolling of the layers unless the butter is melting. In the summertime, the rough puff pastry will likely need a fridge rest in between every second fold to ensure the butter stays chilled.
After the last fold, wrap the dough up tightly in cling film and place it in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours or up to 24. It can also be portioned and frozen at this point.
Portioning the dough
This recipe makes approximately 30oz(850g) of rough puff pastry dough. Portioning into 3 gives you around 10oz/280g per portion. Large puff pastry sheets from the store are often 8oz/245g in weight.
Storing
- Refrigerator – Puff pastry can store in the fridge for up to three days, wrapped tightly. If it’s not wrapped or in an airtight container then the dough will start to dry out.
- Freezing – This pastry freezes well wrapped tightly for up to 3 months. To use, defrost the pastry in the fridge before rolling it out on a floured surface. When rolling it out, place it upright, with the smooth side facing up. You’ll ruin the lamination if you accidentally roll it out with the cut side facing up. Don’t knead or squash the pastry, or you’ll ruin the layers.
Puff pastry rolling and cooking
How thin to roll the pastry depends on the recipe you are making, but in general, roll the pastry portions out relatively thin when using it, around ⅛inch (3-4mm) thickness.
The cooking time and oven temperature for the pastry will depend on the recipe it is used in. However, in general, puff pastry does well with a higher temperature of around 400°F/205°C. This gives the butter that blast of heat for the water to evaporate and the steam to push up the layers.
Ensure you bake the pastry long enough so it is golden brown, light, and crispy. Undercooked puff pastry will be gummy and look raw. Adding an egg wash to the pastry prior to baking it will give it a beautiful deep brown sheen.
Try these puff pastry tomato tartlets, bluberry galette , apple galette or potato tart!
Rough Puff Pastry Recipe
Ingredients
- 375 g all-purpose flour
- 340 g unsalted butter cold
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 160 g ice cold water
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar or lemon juice (optional)
Instructions
- Begin by chopping the butter into 1-inch cubes and placing them in the freezer for 5 minutes to ensure it's nice and cold.
- To a large bowl, add the flour, sugar, and salt and mix them together. Add the cold cubes of butter to the flour.
- Use a pastry cutter to cut the butter Into the flour roughly, but not too small. A few small pieces are fine, but the rest can be left in fairy large chunks. If the butter is melting at any point, place the bowl in the refrigerator.
- Add the lemon juice or vinegar to the ice-cold water. Drizzle it slowly into the flour mixture, a few tablespoons of water at a time. Use a spatula or your hands to combine it into a shaggy dough, and add in enough water as needed but not too much. Add any extra water in slowly, a tablespoon at a time.
- It should hold together easily when pressed but not be sticky. If the dough is super crumbly, add a bit more water. You don't want it sticky. Form the dough into a mound and let it chill in the fridge for 10 minutes. If your room temperature is very cold, you can begin rolling immediately.
- On a floured work surface, roll the dough with a rolling pin into an 8×12-inch rectangle. You will see large chunks of butter in the dough. Dust off any excess flour from the top of the dough.
- Fold the bottom third of the dough up to the middle, then fold the top third over the top to make a pamphlet shape. That was Fold 1. Turn the dough a quarter turn, roll it back into a rectangle, and repeat the folding. That was fold 2.
- Repeat this process three more times so you do 6 folds in total. You can trim the edges of the dough to neaten them when folding to make the lamination more even.
- If you are making this on a cold day, then there is no need for any fridge rest in between the rolling of the layers unless the butter is melting. The rough puff pastry will likely need a fridge rest in between every second fold to ensure the butter stays chilled in the summertime.
- After the last fold, wrap the dough up tightly in cling film and place it in the fridge for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours. It can also be portioned and frozen for up to 3 months. See the above post for freezing instructions.
