To make puff pastry dough, you’ll need 2 basic doughs, called ‘pastello’ and ‘panetto’ dough in Italian. Using equal weights in flour and butter, first work butter with a small portion of the flour for a dough-like consistency – in Italian, we call this primary dough the ‘panetto.’ The rest of the flour will be used to create the ‘pastello’ pastry dough to wrap around the primary ‘panetto’ dough. The processing and kneading of these two doughs is fundamental for a successful puff pastry, which involves several stretches and folds of the dough for its characteristic sheet-like structure. Stretch the pastry dough three times if you plan to fold it in 4; otherwise, stretch it out four times for three folds.
Puff pastry: The basics
There is also the French method, that uses pure butter instead of a mix of butter and flour for the panetto primary dough – equal in weight to the pastello dough, made from only water and flour this time.
The ‘panetto’
To avoid overheating the fat, work the butter with the flour rather quickly.
The ‘hole’ trick
To keep track of how many stretch and folding processes you’ve performed, make a small hole with your finger in the dough before putting it back in the fridge each time.
Consistency
Make sure that the panetto and the pastello doughs have more or less the same softness when you start the stretching and folding process. If the primary panetto dough is too hard, it tears the pastello; if it’s too soft, it spreads unevenly.
Vol-au-vent
When preparing puff pastry in thr vol-au-vent form, overlap two sheets after brushing the first one with water. Then cut out some discs and cut the surface with a smaller pastry cutter.
What to do with leftovers
Pastry scraps should never be kneaded; simply stack and roll them out again. Do not reuse them for the preparation of vol-au-vent. With the scraps, make the ‘sagrestani’ pasta – a great accompaniment to aperitifs or to garnish soups. Sprinkle the rolled thin dough with flour, salt and pepper. Fold it 3 times and cut into strips and twist each strip. Bake in the oven at 370°F. The puff pastry and any scraps can also be used to make cannoli, both savory and sweet versions.
The Recipe: Puff Pastry Step-by-Step
Ingredients (for 1 lb puff pastry dough):
9 oz butter, 6 oz pastry flour, 3 oz bread flour (for pizza dough), Salt
Method
Mix the two flours. Set aside 2 ½ oz of the flour mixture and mix 7 oz with about 4 oz of water and a pinch of salt to make the pastello dough. Let it rest in the fridge, covered, for 30 minutes. Work 2 ½ oz flour with the butter at room temperature (cut into small pieces) for the panetto dough. Close in a sheet of baking paper for a regular shape. Roll it out with the rolling pin into a 20x14 cm brick. Wrap the panetto dough with the pastello and roll it out with a rolling pin (so that the fat begins to penetrate the dough).
Fold the dough onto itself three times for a thick rectangle. Let rest in the fridge until the butter hardens. Rotate the dough (with the shorter, open side facing you) and stretch it vertically. Fold three times and let it rest again, before proceeding with the third round followed by the final fourth round.
You can also fold the dough rolled out into 4. In this case, you only need to fold and stretch it 3 times – letting the dough rest in between each fold and stretch session!