French Housewife Puff Pastry
Channel: slobomotion
Date: 2013-12-25

Digital video recording, comments and annotations copyright 2013 Lisa B. Falour, B.S., M.B.A.
cutecatfaith.com
Dailymotion:  LisaFalour
YouTube:  SLOBOMOTION, CUTECATFAITH

I've gotten repeat requests for this.  You can see how offhand this is, and I show you the starting stages of this and I was doing it one-handed!  The first time I did this, I found it tiresome but now I'm used to mixing it into my day.  Chefs press one, two, three, four, five, fingers into the dough to remind themselves of how many times it's been folded and rerolled out.  You have to chill it again and again in 30 minute segments, so it's housewifely while you'e at home and doing all the various chores.  French wives are still expected to keep things really tidy and the kitchen utterly clean, the sink dry and spotless.

PastryParrot1, a channel I like a lot, recommends adding just a couple of drops of apple cider vinegar to this to increase flakiness.  If you use old flour and ordinary butter, this will not be be a good dough.  Use fancy ingredients, and the first few times I did this I couldn't find my rolling pin so I just used my hand over it again and again, the heel of my palm, under sulphurized paper.  This is a terrific pastry for either sweet or savory dishes.  If you have meat or vegetable bits, you can make pasties with this and they look gorgeous with an egg wash brushed on over the pastry with a few slits in it.  One of my travel tricks is to make a dough and wrap hot dogs smeared with mustard in this and wrap and bake them, then cool and wrap them -- this saves you from having to spend any money on the journey and you're filled up.  

As more and more butter is added and folded into this and rolled in, if you do this at least five times you're in the money.  It can be tightly wrapped and keeps for up to a week in the fridge and you can roll it all out and freeze it, too.  When using a puff pastry for say, a quiche or tarte, you may want to pierce it (and always put it on sulphurized paper), weigh it down and precook it for at least a few minutes in a very hot oven.  Otherwise, you will get something soggy and less than terrific.

I haven't tried this with gluten-free flour yet.  

copyright 2013 Lisa B. Falour, B.S., M.B.A.
cutecatfaith.com
Dailymotion:  LisaFalour
YouTube:  SLOBOMOTION, CUTECATFAITH

I am American-born and now French, living just outside the Paris city limits.