Germany

German Puff Pastry

Suits: Vegetarian, Pescatarian. Allergens named in the ingredients: Gluten, Milk. Flags come from what shops, restaurants and cooks list and from the ingredient names. Always check the label. This is not medical advice.

Ingredients

1000 g flour
250 g water
400 g butter (or margarine)

Method

Mix flour, water and 50 g of the butter to make a dough. Knead well.
Roll dough into a ball. Make a deep cut through the middle, and a second cut at a right angle again through the middle. Roll out the resulting four ends to about half the thickness of the base. It should now have the form of an equilateral cross.
Cream butter until soft. Spread onto the middle part of the cross, forming approximately a cube.
Take each end of the "cross", lift it, and fold it on the top of the butter cube, literally wrapping it up like a gift. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.
Take dough and start rolling it out, always rolling in one direction, until about 10 cm long. During the whole process, use as little flour as possible, and gently remove excessive flour with a brush.
Perform a so-called "simple tour": take one end of the dough and fold it two-thirds of the dough's length toward the other end. Now, take the other end and fold it the opposite way. You should now have three layers of dough.
Roll the dough out again, moving the rolling pin along the folded sides (i.e. rotate the dough 45 degrees).
Repeat the folding and rolling process up to 5 times. The more often you do this, the more layers you will get, and the higher the dough will rise once baked.