Rough puff pastry
One of the things that keeps me excited about what I do is that I am always learning.
When I was making puff pastry not long ago, someone asked me why I made a tic-tac-toe-like slash in the process of making the dough. I had been slashing puff pastry dough, and having my chefs do it, for 30 years, or for as long as I’d been making puff pastry, and yet I had no idea why. I was thinking about this during a drive down to Pizzeria Mozza in Newport Beach. Then, just when I got out of the car, like magic, there was the renowned French baker Claude Koeberle. “You’re just the man I want to see!” I told him. I asked him my question about slashing, which led to a long discourse about butter and oven temperatures and other details too esoteric to go into.
And then, just to prove it’s never too late to teach an old dog new tricks, when I told Claude that at Osteria Mozza we used puff pastry to make borsellini, or beggar’s purses, filled with spiced roasted apples, he told me that for this dessert, I shouldn’t be using true puff pastry at all; that for anything filled, I should use what’s known as “rough puff.”
This was news to me. But if this were true, which, Claude being Claude, I assumed it was, this was great news for home cooks as well. Making classic puff pastry is extremely time consuming and precise; especially if you’ve never done it before, many things can go wrong.
Now that there are packaged alternatives made with real butter, unless you are a cooking Olympian who enjoys a challenge for its own sake or wants the bragging rights of being able to say you’ve made something that nobody in their right mind has ever made from scratch unless they are being paid to, there is no reason to make classic puff pastry at home.
But rough puff is a different story.
To make classic puff pastry, you start with the detrempe, which is a basic dough made of flour, water and butter, and into that you cut a lot more butter. The layers that give puff pastry the name pate feuilletee, or “layered pastry” in French, are created by a process called “turning the dough,” whereby after adding the second dose of butter, you roll out the dough, fold it into thirds, roll it out again, fold it again ... and on it goes until you’ve made a total of four or more turns.
Rough puff is made using the same ingredients and the same turning method as in classic puff pastry. The difference is that with classic puff pastry, the butter is molded into a large rectangle of a specific size and shape and integrated into the detrempe in a very precise and symmetrical way. With rough puff, the butter is cut into big chunks and integrated into the detrempe in a random way, resulting in a much easier, less time-consuming process.
When I learned to make puff pastry while I was a student at Le Cordon Bleu in London, they taught rough puff as a lazy man’s (or woman’s) alternative to the classic version. Since then, I’ve always insisted that if I were going to make puff pastry, it had to be “the right way.” Now, all these years later, here I was, standing with a true authority being told that rough puff wasn’t an inferior option, it was simply a different dough, and in fact it was the dough that for filled pastries would yield the superior product.
Of course, the first thing I did when I got back to the Osteria was set out to try our borsellini using puff pastry made Claude’s way. This meant not only using rough puff but also using milk in place of half the water used in classic puff pastry, a tip Claude reminded me that Paris pastry chef Pierre Herme used for both flavor and color.
Together with my pastry chefs, I made several versions of rough puff, playing with different amounts of milk, butter and salt. The end result was as light, crisp, flaky, flavorful and golden brown as I could ever hope a puff pastry would be -- and as Claude promised, even better than the classic one I had been using.
My puff pastry world had officially been rocked, and though you didn’t even know it then, if you’re a fan of making or eating puff pastry, yours was too.
I almost forgot to tell you: Claude explained to me that the reason we slash the detrempe is that it helps the dough to relax, which makes it easier to work with. A fitting parallel.
Make the detrempe: In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the all-purpose and pastry flours with the salt. Using the paddle attachment at low speed, cut in the 9 ounces of cubed butter; the butter will not be completely blended but will be somewhat visible as small chunks. Add the water and milk, and slowly mix it in until the dough just comes together; it will be soft and a bit sticky, but not wet. Add more water if all the flour has not been incorporated. (You can also use a food processor fitted with a metal blade to cut in the butter; turn it out into a bowl and mix in the liquids by hand.)
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead it a few times until it forms a smooth ball. Use a knife to make a tic-tac-toe cross-hatch in the top of the dough. Place the dough back in the mixer, wrap the bowl tightly in plastic wrap and set aside at room temperature for 30 minutes. The dough can also be refrigerated overnight; bring to room temperature before proceeding.
Return the bowl to the stand mixer, add the remaining 1 pound and 7 ounces of butter cubes, and mix with the paddle attachment over low speed until the butter is combined but not incorporated, less than a minute; you will still see distinctive chunks of butter. (The butter can also be added by hand, but the butter should be slightly softened: on a floured surface, knead the butter chunks into the dough just until combined but not incorporated.)
Remove the dough from the mixer onto a lightly floured work surface. Dust the dough and rolling pin with flour and pat the dough out to a rectangle. (Check the dough frequently while working and using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or rolling pin). Use a rolling pin to press 5 to 6 ridges into the dough. Working from the top down, roll the pin gently back and forth within the ridges to flatten them slightly; this ensures that the butter is flattened out evenly inside the dough. When you’ve reached the last ridge, the dough should be more or less flat. Roll the dough into a long rectangle measuring approximately 8 inches by 20 inches, pulling at the edges to keep them squared off.
Turn the dough: To make the first “turn,” fold the dough rectangle into thirds, folding the bottom up a third of the way, and then folding the top down over the first two layers so the top edge of the dough meets the bottom edge. Check to make sure all the edges are lined up. Rotate the dough so the open flap of pastry (like the open side of a book) is on your right. Roll the dough out to a 10-by-24-inch rectangle, using the same ridge method as before, squaring off the edges. Repeat with a second turn. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 1/2 hours to relax the dough.
Remove the dough and set aside at room temperature until the dough is malleable, about 30 minutes. Turn the dough twice more, same as before. Cover and chill the dough overnight. The puff pastry dough can be refrigerated up to 5 days, or frozen for up to several months, before proceeding with the final turn. (If freezing the dough, place it in the refrigerator overnight to defrost.)
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and set aside until malleable, about 30 minutes. Roll out and turn the dough once more, for a total of 5 turns.
Roll the dough out to a thickness of one-fourth inch. Place the dough on parchment-lined baking sheets (cut the dough if necessary to fit), cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour to give the dough time to relax; otherwise, it will bounce back and shrink as it is baked.
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