Quick Puff Pastry

How to prepare quick puff pastry

1. Cut the butter into roughly equal cubes and leave at room temperature (20-22°C) for 15 minutes, just until it's not cold, but don't let it soften too much (especially if it's warm outside). Put the water in the freezer during this time so it's ice cold.
2. Put the flour in a wide bowl. Scatter the butter cubes on top. Mix the flour with the butter (the cubes should be coated with flour). Start taking butter cubes between your fingers and press them to get butter flakes (photo 1).
3. Pour the water over the entire surface of the flour.
4. Start forming the dough as follows: slide your palm under the flour, bring it over the butter, and press with the base of your palm. Rotate the bowl and repeat this motion until all the flour is "stuck" to the butter. Under no circumstances knead the dough like bread dough, even if you're tempted. We want the butter pieces to remain whole in the dough and in the same direction. We don't need to get a smooth or fine dough (see photo 2); when the flour in the bowl is "stuck" to the butter, our dough is ready. Turn the dough out onto the work surface where you've placed parchment paper and dusted with flour. Shape the dough into a rectangle, just by pressing lightly from the sides.
5. With the rolling pin, use only back-and-forth motions to roll out the dough. Try to roll the dough as evenly as possible, without big differences in thickness (see photo 3). When you have an elongated sheet about a finger thick, it's ready. Fold it in thirds (see photo 4).
6. Turn the dough with the folded side down. Rotate the piece of dough 90 degrees and repeat the rolling and folding in thirds.
8. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
9. Repeat steps 5-6-7 one more time. Remember, roll the dough only with back-and-forth motions and apply even pressure for a sheet of uniform thickness. On the second round of rolling, the dough will be easier to roll and more uniform.
10. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and do the final roll-fold as follows: roll out the dough with back-and-forth motions, into a sheet just as long and about a finger thick. Bring the short ends to the center (see photo 6). Then fold in half once more (see photo 7). Refrigerate the dough for 15 minutes.
11. Roll out the dough into a thin sheet (like store-bought puff pastry; the idea is not to make it extremely thin so the puff layers are ruined, but not thick either so it's heavy in desserts). The sheet can be whatever shape you want (more round, longer, etc.), depending on what you plan to make with it. Now you can roll it both lengthwise and widthwise, there are no restrictions on the direction of the rolling pin. The dough can be used immediately.
12. Storage: I usually cut the dough into two equal pieces (to make it easier to handle and store), dust them with a little flour, wrap them in plastic wrap, then in parchment paper. I put them in the refrigerator stacked on top of each other until I use them. They keep for 2-3 days in the refrigerator. When you want to use them, just take them out, cut/trim them as desired, and bake exactly like store-bought puff pastry.

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