Sweet rough puff pastry recipe
So you may think just buying a pre made rough puff pastry sheet is the easier option. And it is, we do not deny, we also use it as an alternative when things go awry or we flat out cannot be arsed. But – and that’s a big but – when you have the time, and want to put in the extra effort, give this rough puff a go.
We say this is a sweet rough puff pastry because there are almonds in the pastry dough. We know that having almonds doesn’t necessarily mean it will be sweet, but it does highlight sweet dishes beautifully. Definitely feel free to use in a savoury dish! We have a feeling that a middle eastern savoury filling would be delicious with an almond pastry!
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- Rough puff pastry dough after it has rested in the fridge.
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- Roll pastry into a rectangle, step 5 in the method.
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- Turning around the dough for ease, fold in the shorter ends of the pastry, as stated in, step 6 in the method.
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- Then fold the two short ends over again to create a book fold like shape. step 7 in the method. In this case we have again rotated the pastry 90 degrees clockwise and then folded in.
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- Once the dough has rested, roll out into a rectangle and repeat the process.
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- After repeating the folding method again twice, you’ll end up with a folded pastry book once more.
So the trick to rough puff pastry is the folds. It is all in the folds, with those glorious lumps of butter folded through. I mean you can see it peeking through in those photos above!
Tips
For this recipe, to just clearly state, you should have rolled out the dough into a 20cmx40cm shape all of 4 times. Two times in one go ensuring the dough is always being turned 90 degrees to the left after every book fold; this happens all of two times (2 by 2).
Working and creating the pastry dough
Try to make quick work of creating the dough. You should ensure that you aren’t tampering with the rough puff pastry dough to much otherwise you risk the butter warming and melting through, preventing any flakiness from developing once cooked.
When dicing the butter, leave them as large as possible as to prevent it all blending in the food processor.
| Prep Time | 1 hour |
| Cook Time | 30 minutes |
| Passive Time | 30 minutes |
| Servings |
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- 25 g ground almonds
- 225 g plain flour
- 250 g butter cold
- 5 g sea salt flakes
- 80 ml iced water
Ingredients
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- Add flour, ground almonds, salt and butter into a food processor and pulse until a dough just about comes together.*
- Add in the ice cold water and pulse again until just combined. Again take care to leave in those large streaks of butter.
- Lightly flour a cool worktop and remove dough from food processor.
- Working quickly, gently press the dough with fingertips so that it comes together. Shape into a rectangle and place in a zip lock bag in the fridge to rest for 10 minutes.
- Once the 10 minutes are up, take out of the fridge and unwrap the dough and turn onto a lightly floured cool worktop once again. Dust a rolling pin if necessary and roll out rectangle until about roughly 20cmx40cm. Take care to leave edges straight and even.
- Start to fold the short ends of the rectangle dough into each other until they meet inn the middle.
- Then fold the two short ends over again to create a book fold like shape.
- Turn the dough 90 degrees to the left.
- Roll out again to the 20cmx40cm rectangle. Repeat the folding process described in step 6 and 7 respectively.
- Turn dough 90 degrees to the left. Press an indent of your thumb in the top right hand corner of the dough.
- Place dough back into zip lock bag and place in the fridge to rest for a further 10 minutes.
- Take out of fridge after rested and place dough on lightly floured bench with thumb print still in the top right hand corner.
- Repeat steps 6-9. Turn dough 90 degrees left. Place dough in bag and let rest in fridge for further 10 minutes.
- Once rested, remove from fridge and dough is ready to use! If you aren't using straight away, leave in the fridge.
*You want to ensure there are large streaks of butter in the dough.
Enjoy! This rough puff pastry is so versatile and can be used for sweet and savoury dishes. We loving using this pastry recipe for our Apple Tarte Tartin which work beautifully well as shown to us by Maggie Beer. We’ve also combined this pastry and our Apple & Blackberry Pie filling to create an open rough puff apple and blackberry tart!
