Ham and Gruyere Pastry Puff

[snousle]

Just futzing around with the miracle 15 minute puff pastry recipe from Cook's Illustrated. You definitely need to grok the technique to make it work, but boy is it easy.

I made a whole bunch of absurdly buttery apple turnovers, then took the scraps, ran them through the pasta roller, and made some little "Costco Appetizers" which I baked in the toaster oven for a snack. They turned out to be the best part of the experiment:



Pastries always look better when made small and shot big. ;-)

Comments

[mhgagnon.livejournal.com]

Indeed! This looks delish!

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Is this one of those recipes that Mere Mortals can safely attempt?

[snousle.livejournal.com]

If you understand the basic principles of puff pastry and are able to keep the dough cold, it's super easy. But if you don't pay attention, or fiddle with it excessively, it can certainly fail. Minimal handling is the key - you have to blend, roll, and fold it right the first time, because you don't get a second chance.

Cooks Illustrated went to a lot of trouble to come up with a puff pastry method that is "not perfect but extremely quick". It takes a little dexterity but it's NOTHING like suffering through the traditional masochistic methods. (Some of which include such pleasures as kneading butter in an ice water bath for half an hour. I've always thought this was invented as form of hazing for apprentice pastry chefs. After five years, the chef probably says "Oh that, I was just kidding!")

[oscarlikesbugsy.livejournal.com]

Wow. That looks like the price of admission is worth it.

Is this the link?:

http://www.cooksillustrated.com/recipes/login.asp?docid=4756
Quickest Puff Pastry, March 1994

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Yep.

[furr-a-bruin.livejournal.com]

"Absurdly buttery" is an oxymoron, since there's no such thing as too much butter. ;)

[h0gwash.livejournal.com]

That looks really good.

[stivalineri.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this, I think I'll make an exception from my "no-white-foods" rule and make some.