Puff pastry can be hard to make at first but with practise and patience making the perfect puff pastry will be easy! One tip I would give, is to be patient, you must allow enough time for the pastry to cool in the fridge. This will solidify the butter in the pastry after the pastry has been rolled out. The colder the butter the less chance the butter with leak out the pastry when rolling and baking.
Puff Pastry:
Ingredients:
300g Plain Flour
300g Cold Butter
140ml Cold Water
1 tsp Lemon Juice
1. Cut of 50g of butter and place the rest of the butter in the fridge. Cut the 50g portion of butter into cubes.
2. Place the cold butter and flour into a food processor and pulse until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. Keep the process mixing pour in the cold water and lemon juice. The lemon juice in the pastry will break down the gluten in the flour and will allow the layers (that will be built up) to rise when baked.
3. Dust the work surface with flour and kneed the pastry on 2-3 times. Wrap the pastry in cling film and place in the fridge to cool for 30 minutes.
4. While the pastry is chilling. Take the rest of the butter out of the fridge and place the butter in between two pieces of cling film. Using a rolling pin flatten and shape the butter into a 15cm square. Place in the fridge to cool for 15 minutes.
5. Take the pastry out of the fridge and roll the pastry into a 40cm square on a dusted work surface. Take the flatten butter out of the fridge and place the butter square into the middle of the pastry square. Fold the excess pastry over the butter square. Press the seams together with the rolling pin to seal the butter.
6. Turn the butter-pastry square upside down and roll into a rectangle that is 50cm (length) by 20cm (width). Fold the bottom third of the dough to cover the middle and then with the top third of the dough fold into the middle.
7. Finally fold together the other two sides to form a square. Press the edges of the pastry with the rolling pin to seal the edges of the pastry. Lightly press on the pastry with your finger to make a mark. Cover the pastry in cling film and place the pastry in the fridge for 15 minutes.
8. Take the pastry out of the fridge and place on a dusted work surface. The mark on the pastry should be facing you. Turn the pastry 90 degrees and repeat steps 6 and 7 again twice. This will give you 3 turns in total.
9. Leave the pastry in the fridge until you need to use the pastry. The colder the pastry before it goes in the oven the better the puff pastry will make.