Puff Pastry

I’ll be honest. I generally buy puff pastry as making it is very time consuming. This is technically a rough puff pastry as the proper version involves rolling out sheets of very cold butter but that really is too much work…

500g strong white bread flour or 00 flour

280ml cold water

170g butter

1. Make a dough by combining the flour and water. Knead the dough well until it is smooth. (You can do this in a food mixer if you have one.)
2. Cover the bowl of dough with a plastic bag and leave to chill in the fridge for one hour. Remove dough from the fridge and place the butter in the freezer. While the butter freezes, roll the dough into a rectangle on a well-floured surface.
3. Remove the butter from the freezer once your dough is rolled and grate it onto a chopping board. Arrange the grated butter into a rectangle in the middle third of the dough.

4. Fold the top section of dough to over the butter to cover it, as shown below.

5. Fold the bottom section of dough upwards to give a smaller rectangle.

6. Place your dough onto a well-floured chopping board or tray before covering with the plastic bag and refrigerating for half an hour to one hour.

7. Remove the dough from the fridge and place it on a well-floured surface, with the shortest end of the rectangle nearest you. Roll the dough out into a rectangle again and then fold into neat thirds again before refrigerating. You should repeat this one more time (three times in total), allowing the dough to chill for 30 minutes to an hour each time.

8. The dough can be used immediately after the final chilling or will keep for a day or two in the fridge, if well wrapped in clingfilm. Roll it out into a rectangle, the thickness of a pound coin before use.