Starting with the Basics : How to make Puff Pastry.

Making Puff Pastry can be a bit tricky, so here is my easy method.

You are going to need :

500 g plain flour
250 ml of cold milk
150 g of butter (diced)
100 g of butter for rolling
1/2 tsp salt

Then follow this simple method :

Put the flour into a large mixing bowl and add the salt. To start this puff pastry we are going to treat it like ordinary short crust and make a rough breadcrumb mix.
Dice the butter and add it to the flour and salt. Work the butter with your fingers , be sure not to over work this all you need is a very rough breadcrumb mix, so leave medium size pieces of butter through out the mix.

The secret to this pastry is to keep it cold at all times so I am using full fat milk out of the fridge, pour the milk into the flour then combine with a fork.
Once you have a rough dough get your hands in and work it into a pastry. You can then tip it out onto a floured surface and work it for a few minutes.
Wrap the pastry up in cling film and refrigerate it for 30 minutes.

Put the remaining butter between a folded piece of silicone or grease proof paper then slowly roll it into a flat rectangle. Refrigerate the sheet for about 20 minutes.

Once the pastry and the butter are cold it is time to start rolling and folding the dough.
Roll out the dough into a rectangle that is twice as long as it is wide then after removing half of the silicon paper from the slab of butter turn the butter out onto one half of the rolled pastry.
Using your hand rub the butter trough the paper so that is sticks to the pastry, you will need to rub it quite hard, then peel off the backing paper.
Fold the pastry over the butter then fold again, this is roll #1.
Refrigerate again for 10 minutes.
You need to repeat this process a minimum of 6 times up to 15 - 20 times. The more time you invest at this stage the better result you will get.
Keep rolling the pastry into a rectangle twice as long as it is wide, fold the ends into the centre then fold in half , wrap it up and refrigerate.

By the end of this process you will be left with a fat block of light buttery pastry that you can cut in half , wrap in clingfilm and freeze for a few months if you like.
When you cut it in half you should be able to see all of the light layers you have created.

You can find this recipe on my Website as well :