Home › Sauces and Meats › Puff Paste
Puff Paste
(Pasta sfoglia) The Pasta sfoglia is not too difficult to make and if the following instructions are carefully followed, this fine and light paste can easily be prepared. It is well to have a marble slab to roll it on but this is not absolutely necessary. warm, damp day is not favorable for the making of the Pasta sfoglia, which succeeds better when the weather is cold and dry.
A Mix half a pound of flour of the very best quality with a piece of butter as big as a walnut, some warm, but not hot water, enough salt and a teaspoonful of good brandy. When the paste is formed knead it well for about half an hour, first with the hands, then throwing it repeatedly with force against the bread board. Make a cake of a rectangular form, wrap it in cloth and let it rest for a while. Meanwhile work with the hand 1/2 lb. of butter that has been kept previously on ice or, better, in a bowl of ice-water, until it becomes smooth and flexible, then make of it a little cake like that of the paste and throw it in a bowl of cold water. When the dough has rested take the butter from the water, wipe it with a cloth and dip it in flour.
Roll the paste only as long as it is necessary to enclose within the cake of butter. This is placed in the middle and the edges of the sheet of paste are drawn over it, closing well with fingers moistened in a little water so that no air remains inside. Then begin to flatten, first with the hands, then with the rolling pin, making the sheet as thin as possible, but taking care that the butter does not come out. If this happens throw at once a little flour where the butter appears and always have the marble slab (or bread board) and the rolling pin sprinkled with flour. Fold it over, making three even layers of paste, and again roll the folded strip, repeating the operation six times and letting the paste rest from time to time for a few minutes. At the last time, fold it in two and reduce it to the necessary thickness that is, about one third of an inch. After each folding press the edges gently with the rolling pin to shut in the air, and turn the paste so as to roll in a different direction.
When the paste has had six turns cut it into the desired forms and put on ice, or in a cold place for twenty to thirty minutes before putting it on the oven, which must be very hot, with the greatest heat at the bottom.
The puff past is used for patè shells and volau-vent cake and for light pastries of all kinds. 63
A classic laminated dough, written for a coal range and a marble slab. The method is sound; only the units, the oven description and one or two of the timings need translating.
- QuantitiesHalf a pound of flour is about 227 g, roughly 1 3/4 cups; half a pound of butter is two American sticks. The butter as big as a walnut in the dough is about 1 tablespoon. Water is unmeasured on purpose — add until the dough is firm but pliable, around 100–120 ml.
- The oven"Very hot, with the greatest heat at the bottom" suggests roughly 425–450F, with the pastry set low in the oven or on a preheated heavy baking sheet. Bottom heat helps drive the steam upward and lift the layers.
- Keep the butter cold, keep the dough coolThis is the hinge. If the butter softens it merges into the dough instead of staying as sheets, and there is no lamination. The ice-water bowl in the original is doing what a refrigerator now does — chill the butter block to the point where it bends without cracking, roughly 60F, and rest the dough in the fridge between turns.
- Why the weather mattersThe warning about a warm, damp day is not superstition. Warm air softens the butter, and humid flour can take up less added water, so the dough turns slack.
- Half an hour of kneadingTen minutes in a stand mixer, or five to eight by hand, gives all the gluten strength required. The slapping against the board is the same idea as slap-and-fold; it develops the dough quickly, but half an hour is far longer than needed and will only warm it.
- The brandyA teaspoon of spirit slightly limits gluten development and evaporates in the oven, leaving the crumb a little more tender. It is optional; vinegar or lemon juice is the more common modern substitute.
- Turns and thicknessThe recipe asks for folds in three, with the last fold in two, which gives several hundred layers. Rest the dough 20–30 minutes in the fridge whenever it resists the pin. The final one-third inch is a vol-au-vent thickness; for palmiers, cheese straws or tart bases roll thinner, to about 1/8 inch.
- Before bakingThe 20–30 minutes of chilling after cutting is what keeps the shapes from slumping. Cut with a sharp knife or a dipped cutter and avoid dragging the edges, which seals the layers shut and reduces the rise.
- YieldThis makes roughly 575 g of paste — enough for one large vol-au-vent case, a dozen small patty shells, or a double-crust tart. It freezes well, rolled into a block and wrapped.
Pasta sfoglia means simply "leafed paste," from foglia, a leaf — the same image behind the French mille-feuille. Laminated pastry of this kind is claimed by both French and Italian traditions, and the Italian claim is usually pressed through Renaissance cookery, where sheeted, butter-layered doughs appear in the work of court cooks; the documentary trail is thinner than the confident stories suggest, so it is best treated as traditional rather than settled. What is clear is the technical context of this particular version: it assumes ice rather than refrigeration, a marble slab for coolness, and an oven whose fiercest heat sat at the floor. Puff paste appears here first as an engineering component — the shell for a vol-au-vent or a meat pâté — rather than as a dessert in its own right.