Pastry from puff pastry. Secrets of the best housewives

Each mistress has her own special recipe - be it meat, salads, vegetables or pastries. Each of them usually becomes a subject of discussion among girlfriends and pride for the spouse. In our time, not every man can be proud of the culinary talents of his beloved woman. The ability to bake pies can not boast of all modern girls, but men who want their second half to know how to do it - the majority. This article will help to make pastry from puff pastry your business card. On the one hand - it's easy enough baking, which does not require a lot of ingredients, but on the other - the process of kneading a puff pastry is complicated and requires many conditions. You need to know the three main secrets when creating a puff pastry:

1. Avoid the formation of lumps, even the smallest. Rubbing the dough is necessary only in one direction, namely clockwise.

2. The main secret lies in the presence of cold. In the cold it is necessary to take out all the semi-finished products. Further, in the intervals between rolling, the dough should also be exposed to cold.

3. Roll-up of the puff pastry should be repeated seven times.

So, how to properly knead the puff pastry, the baking of which melts in your mouth. The whole work can be divided into 3 stages:

1. Kneading test.

Flour should be sifted in the form of a slide on a wooden board or in a bowl. In the center of this hill make a depression. Separately whip the egg, salt, water and citric acid. Then this mixture is poured into the groove, after which you can knead the smooth dough. After that, it should be put in a cold place for about 30 minutes, but not less.

2. Preparation of butter.

Pastry from puff pastry has a unique taste and appearance, mainly due to the correct preparation of oil at this stage. Cold oil should be mixed with 2-3 tablespoons of sifted flour. Then roll out the resulting mass on the board sprinkled with flour. It is desirable to give it the shape of a rectangle or a square. Just like the dough, we remove the oil in the refrigerator. Before rolling, you need to make sure that the dough itself and the oil mass are equally steeply mixed, otherwise the butter will not lie evenly when rolling, but it remains a single piece that will ruin the flaky pastry, baking simply does not work out as it should be.

3. Roll out the dough layers.

The dough should be rolled up so that a square piece larger than a piece of butter dough is obtained. It is important that in the middle it is thicker than at the edges. The oil mixture should be put in the middle of the squared dough and then make it bend (clearly from right to left). After that, roll out the dough, lightly pressing it. The thickness of it should be about 1.5 cm. Then fold the dough three times or even four times and roll it out again. Now you need to put it for a while in the refrigerator, and to make it not dry - cover it with a damp cloth. The already cooled dough should be re-rolled, folded, rolled back and placed in the refrigerator for another 20 minutes. Total, such rollouts you should get 7 pieces. That's it, "easy baking" - it's easy to eat, but it's not easy to do.

Even if you do everything according to the instructions, this does not guarantee that your pastry puff pastry will be perfect. For best results, use the following tips:

• Cut the raw puff pastry with a very sharp knife or special cutter. If the knife is blunt, it will flatten the edges, and then pastry from the puff pastry simply will not separate.
• Do not open the oven for the first 10 minutes.
• Roll out the dough strictly in one direction, and bend it from right to left.
• Homemade puff pastry can be stored for up to 8 days, wrapped in foil, and in the freezer for up to 6 weeks.

Also it is worth noting that it is possible to bake a puff pastry in a conventional gas stove or microwave oven. Housewives want to offer a choice of several original toppings for puff pastry :

• Cottage cheese + finely chopped dried apricots or raisins without pits
• Finely chopped and boiled cabbage + chopped boiled eggs
• Minced boiled chicken meat + fried onions + pickled mushrooms