• Makes enough for a pie
Puff pastry, unfairly, has a reputation for being difficult to make. At Maitreya we make all our puff pastry by hand using this simple method. It is important that the butter is at a temperature for it to be workable without being too soft. It’s very satisfying when you get this right and tastes so much better than shop-bought pastry.
Ingredients
- 250g Salted butter at room temperature
- 275g White bread flour
- Juice of ½ lemon
- 185g Very cold water
Method
- Put the flour in a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre
- Into this pour the water and lemon juice then, using a knife or spatula, cut the liquid into the flour until in is roughly combined
- Scrape this mixture out onto a work surface and gently knead into a dough being careful not to overwork
- On a well floured surface shape dough into a rough rectangle and using a rolling pin, roll out the four corners to create ‘wings’
- Place the butter in the middle of the dough and carefully fold over the wings to completely enclose the butter
- Roll out this envelope carefully making sure to not let the butter escape into a rectangle approximately 30cmx10cm
- Take the top third of this strip and fold it over towards yourself
- Fold the bottom third over this to form a triple layer
- Turn this shape ninety degrees and roll out to 30cmx10cm and repeat the two folds
- Wrap the pastry in clingfilm and rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes
- Remove from the fridge and repeat steps 6-10 twice over
- Now rest your pastry wrapped in the fridge for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight and it is ready to use