Puff Pastry: the best recipe for a classic French pastry dough

Puff pastry is a wonderful, lighter-than-air flaky dough that every home baker should know how to make. Known as pâte feuilletée in French, puff pastry is an essential component in so many recipes. From savory pies and appetizers such as danishes and sausage rolls to sweet pastries such apple turnovers, there are dozens upon dozens of ways to use this tasty versatile, buttery dough.

Homemade puff pastry tastes absolutely divine – it's a million times more delicious, flaky, and airy than anything you'll buy in a store. The secret? Laminating the dough with butter in order to make crispy layers once cooked. Curious about how to make puff pastry from scratch? We'll break it down for you here, step by step.

Puff Pastry Ingredients

Homemade puff pastry only calls for a few ingredients. You'll need flour, butter, salt, and water.

How to Make Puff Pastry

To make homemade puff pastry, start by sifting your flour and salt into the bowl. Add just enough water to form a dough that comes away easily from the sides of the bowl. Don't add too much water, or the dough will be unworkable. Roll the dough into a ball and leave it to rest for several minutes.

While the dough is resting, lay out a sheet of plastic wrap. Put the butter on top, then cover it with a second piece of plastic wrap. Beat the butter with a rolling pin to form a flat disc. Refrigerate the butter for about half an hour or until it becomes firm.

Now it's time to laminate the dough. Laminating is the process of repeatedly folding the dough over the butter, rolling it out, turning it, then repeating everything several times. This makes the pastry ultra flaky and buttery. Flour your work surface.

Roll out the dough into a large rectangle and arrange the butter in the center. Fold the top half and bottom half of the dough to cover the butter disc. Roll the dough back out. Turn the dough 90 degrees. Fold the dough into thirds. Roll the dough out into a rectangle, then turn and roll out the dough. Repeat two more times. When the butter starts warming up, wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for at least half an hour.

Repeat the folding and rolling out twice more. Rewrap the dough and return it to the fridge for another 30 minutes. Roll out, fold, and turn the dough another two more times, then wrap the dough and pop it back in the fridge. Your puff pastry is now ready to use!

Can You Make Puff Pastry in a Food Processor?

You can use a food processor for the first few steps of making puff pastry. It's ideal for combining flour, water, and salt to make a dough. However, you will need to add the butter and roll it into the dough by hand.

Tip for the Best Puff Pastry

If you're looking for a plant-based alternative, you can use margarine or plant-based butter substitute to make your puff pastry. Vegetable shortening works too, but has a denser texture which will result in a denser puff pastry.

How to Bake Puff Pastry

Exactly how to bake puff pastry will depend on the recipe you're making, but in general, you'll want to bake it at about 400F for 20 minutes.

How to Use Puff Pastry

There are myriad ways to use puff pastry. It works for both sweet treats and savory mains and appetizers. It's always a great ingredient to have on hand when you're making food for holiday parties and other gatherings. Here are a few of the ways you can use puff pastry in your kitchen.

Savory Recipes

Puff pastry can be used to make savory pies and tarts (think goat cheese tarts or vegetable and cheese tarts), beef Wellington, savory cheese and bacon turnovers layered over a pot pie, prosciutto cups, spanokopita, meat pastry pockets, vol-au-vents, and more. Get creative!

Sweet Recipes

Dessert-wise, puff pastry makes beautiful sweet turnovers (like apple, peach, and berry), chocolate puffs, lemon or berry tarts, danishes, and strudels, or you can bake the pastry and spoon fresh fruit and whipped cream over it for a simple yet elegant dessert.

How to Store Puff Pastry

Once you've laminated the dough, simply wrap and return the puff pastry to the fridge until you're ready to use it. It will last up to 5 days in the fridge.

Can You Freeze Puff Pastry?

You can definitely freeze puff pastry to use at a later date. Homemade puff pastry will last between 10 months to a year in the freezer.

Instructions

Sift flour and salt into the bowl.

Slowly add in just enough water to form a dough that doesn't stick to the sides of the bowl.

Roll the dough into a ball and leave it for about 10 minutes to rest.

Lay out a sheet of plastic wrap. Put the butter on top, then cover it with a second sheet of plastic wrap. Beat the butter with a rolling pin or meat tenderizer to form a flat disc. Put the butter disc in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes or until firm.

Lightly flour a work surface. Roll out the dough into a large rectangle.

Place the disc of butter in the center of the dough. Fold the top half and bottom half of the dough, so that it covers the butter.

Roll the dough back out.

Fold the dough into thirds.

Turn the dough 90 degrees.

Then roll the dough out into a rectangle.

Repeat two more times. Wrap the dough in cling film and refrigerate for at least half an hour. Repeat the folding and rolling out twice more. Rewrap the dough and return it to the fridge for another 30 minutes. Repeat the entire process, then wrap.

Refrigerate until you're ready to use your puff pastry.

When you want to use puff pastry, give it the shape you want and bake until golden brown. Enjoy!

Notes

Take your time to laminate the dough properly. If the butter warms up when laminating, put the dough back in the fridge until the butter becomes firm again.