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oven same as a Yorkshire pudding. And here is the confusion that leaves many cooks scratching
their heads and look for a cooking encyclopedia. Cream puff pastry is completely different than puff
pastry. We use cream puff pastry to make cream puffs and puff pastry to make turnovers and
Napoleon. To avoid the confusion, some bakers call cream puff pastry cream puff paste.
The process of making cream puff pastry seems forbiddingly difficult but it is not, and it is
quick. Puff pastry is more involved and anything but quick. You can summarize making cream puff
pastry in a few sentences: boil water and butter in a sauce pan, stir to form a hot emulsion, about
half a minute. Stir the flour in all at once. The heat makes the starch swell and gelatinize in seconds
to form a smooth, hot paste. Add the eggs, one at a time, and blend into the gelatinized paste. Stir in
more liquid to get the correct consistency and you have cream puff pastry. It is as simple as it
sounds.
Spoon the pastry on an oiled baking sheet like you would drop cookies or, for prettier
appearance, use a pastry bag. Brush with egg wash that will turn the top to a golden yellow and bake
in a very hot oven. The eggs act as a leavening agent as well as structural framework for the puffs.
Each pastry mound puffs up 3 or 4 times its size with a large air cavity inside.
Cream puffs, like crêpes, are neutral in flavor and you may fill them with virtually anything
sweet, creamy, soft or semi-soft. Vanilla pastry cream is a common choice. To make your cream
puffs even jazzier, try a thick fruit mousse filling.
Unfilled, the puffs store well in the freezer. To refresh, place them on a baking sheet and
bake in a warm oven for 5 minutes.
Puff pastry
One of the most ingenious French creations is the buttery puff pastry, the basis of many
truly great, wonderful creations two of which we know well, turnovers and Napoleon. Croissant is
similar in most ways to puff pastry but it is yeast-leavened.
The basis of puff pastry is a simple flour-water dough into which you fold a generous
quantity of cold butter. After chilling, fold the dough into three like you fold a letter, repeating five
more times, rolling out and chilling in-between. Eventually you end up with a smooth, pliable
dough with 729 layers (if you count the folds in the description above, you should come up with the
same number). A very thin film of butter separates each layer from its neighbor.
When you bake puff pastry, in the hot oven the moisture in the butter turns into steam,
slightly raising each and every layer. Biting into a turnover you are biting down on 2 times 729, i.e.
1458 layers (since you turned over the turnover pastry one more time).
Making a good puff pastry is not an easy baking task but one of the most satisfying ones.
Once you master it, you are addicted to it (both to making and eating). Puff pastry freezes very well
at any stage—in the pastry form after cut into ready-to-serve pieces, filled ready to bake or when
fully baked. Wrapping it well is essential to prevent butter turning rancid.
Puff pastry
Making a good puff pastry is a sign of an accomplished baker. Besides having a good recipe
and precise instructions, keep making it several times until you master the technique. Once you
make a good puff pastry, the process is quite easy. Although it takes little actual working time, the
whole process is slow because the chilling after each folding. Puff pastry is the basic pastry for a
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