Search Results for: puff pastry

Where does puff pastry come from?

I’d love to know the answer to that myself, reader Finn. The French claim to have invented puff pastry, but then don’t they stake a claim to everything with that much butterfat? The Italians also claim to have invented — or at least perfected — puff pastry, and indeed there are mentions of laminated dough that date back to Renniassance-era Venice and Florence. But then Spaniards and the Turks also maintain they were the first to perfect laminated dough, and at about the same time. So who’s right?

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Puff Pastry Recipe

You know, it occurred to me just this morning that I’ve never put one of these up, which makes me the a leading contender for the International Captain Obvious “Duh” Award when it’s bestowed in Copenhagen later this year. Lord, what a dimwit I am. Anyway, here’s one I like quite a bit: For the […]

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Puff Pastry User’s Guide

Reader Chana writes in with a special request/conundrum: I recently made my first batch of puff pastry (following Nick Malgieri’s recipe/technique); it did come out okay, but mostly it was a wonderful learning experience. So now I have several half-pound blocks of puff pastry in the freezer. My overwhelming desire is to ignore them — […]

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Puff Pastry History: The French Version

The French claim to having invented puff pastry may not be credible, but at least it has the virtue of being entertaining. So the story goes, it was created by a baker’s apprentice by the name of Claudius Gele in 1645. That was the year, apparently, that Claudius’ father took sick, and was prescribed a […]

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More Puff Pastry Love

Ah, the frozen ball of puff pastry scraps comes through again. This time in the form of cheese straws for as hastily assembled dinner party. Actually, I think scraps are better for cheese straws than the unadulterated dough that this recipe calls for. But that may just be me.

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Making Puff Pastry III

Concerning the final stage of puff pastry, the rolling and folding, I’m pretty much in agreement with the author of this week’s recipe. Yet I think it’s important to emphasize the “why” of the butter envelope and the initial roll, because this is the really critical point in the recipe. So you’ve got your giant […]

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Making Puff Pastry II

In sharp contrast to the first step of puff pastry making, step II is where you get to really get in touch with the inner Neanderthal. It’s the butter block stage. The recipe instructs us to put room temperature butter into a food processor with a small amount of flour and blend it. Once the […]

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Making Puff Pastry I

Almost every puff pastry recipe I know calls for equal amounts of butter and flour (by weight). They only vary in the amount of salt or lemon juice they use, or in the case of this recipe, by the types of flour used. In my experience, you don’t need to worry about cutting down the […]

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Where does upside-down cake come from?

That’s not easy to say, since upside down tarts and cakes have been made since at least the day of the great Antoine Carême. Indeed Carême published recipes for several glazed gâteaux renversés, as he called them, in his Royal Parisian Pastry Chef cookbook, which is dated to the 1830’s.

So the idea is not very new and indeed probably came to prominence in the 1880’s with the rise of tarte Tatin, the famous upside-down apple tart made from sliced apples, caramel and puff pastry. The dish was “invented” at the Tatin Hotel in Lamotte-Beuvron, but its fame soon spread and was being made everywhere in Paris by the turn of the century.

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Murcian Meat Pie Recipe

Like virtually all meat pies, these can contain just about any mixture of meat scraps or leftovers you have handy: ground or shredded meat, organ meats, sausages, ham, whatever’s around. The crust is a two-part affair. The top is made from roll-laminated dough, the bottom from short crust, puff pastry or puff pastry scraps. Short crust is the most common bottom crust, or so I understand, but do as you wish. Obsessing about ingredients is against the spirit of savory pies, which are all about making do with whatever’s available. Note that if you’re using pre-cooked shredded meat you’ll probably want some sort of a binder to hold the filling together, like a beaten egg.

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