Time to rough it up.

Lesson 5: Rough Puff (Scotch method) making Bande de fruits.


For all the puff pastries we make we use the same recipe which you can find on my previous post.

Rough Puff. Its quicker then the other methods as you don't let the dough rest before incorporating the butter or do as many folds. You do 2 single turns and 2 double turns and the butter goes in to start with.

Sift the flour and salt (please please please make sure you do this... I've found a little unwanted friend in my flour when I sifted it who was hiding and unseen until him and his babies were left in my sieve at the end. Gave me the heedie geebies!!!) in a large bowl and add your butter in small pieces, tossing to coat the butter pieces in flour.

Add the water and mix roughly. DO NOT rub the butter into the flour. It will look like a shaggy mess at this stage and you'll probably think your doing it all wrong but you WANT huge lumpy chunks of butter with a dough surrounding them.

Knead lightly into a ball making sure you keep the chunks and don't let them disappear.

Roll the dodgy, chunky looking dough into a long rectangle and fold into thirds. Flip the dough so the open ends are at the top and bottom and roll out again. This time you will do a double fold; Fold both long ends into the middle (like a book) and then fold it in half (close the book). Allow to rest for 20min covered in a damp cloth in the fridge.

Place the dough with open ends at the top and bottom and roll out again. Do a single fold (in thirds), turn the dough, roll out and do a double fold. Allow to rest again before rolling the dough out to your required thickness.

We made Bande de Fruits and cut three different sizes. (A)10cm x 30cm. (B)12cm x 30cm and (C)13cm x 30cm. We also made small fruit tarts using a circle cutter and topping them with almond cream and fruit.

With A we made an indent lengthways 1cm in from the sides and places sliced apples sprinkled with sugar down the centre. Brush the exposed pastry with egg wash.

With C we made cuts down the middle in the shape of a v's, piped down the middle of B with almond cream and placed apple on top of the almond cream, brushed the edges with an egg wash and then placed C on top of B brushing the top with more egg wash.

These were then baked in a hot oven until the pastry was golden and cooked on the bottom.

Mmmmm delish!

From cakes to pastry.

We changed topics and finished off cakes with a bang. Now onto pastry and starting with the basics.

Prepare and produce pastries 101: Short pastry making Tarte Bourdaloue.

We used the rub in method then all gave up (including chef) and used the mixer with the paddle attachment. I think he realised we would all take too as it was a cold morning and our butter was hard as a rock. We sifted the flour and sugar on our bench and then added our cold butter which was cut into small cubes. Rubbing with the tips of our fingers (you can do this also in a food processor or a mixer with the paddle attachment). Once the mixture resembled fine breadcrumbs and there were no lumps of butter throughout we added some lemon zest for flavour. Next we made a well in the centre and poured in our eggs and vanilla in and combined it all using our hands, kneading lightly into a log shape. You have to be very careful here not to overwork the dough as you don't want it to shrink when it is being cooked. We then glad-wrapped our little pride and joy and placed him in the fridge to rest. He can also be frozen at this stage for up to 2 months.

For our filling we poached some pears in sugar syrup (equal parts sugar and water), lemon zest and vanilla, made almond cream and used some tinned pie filling to see the difference between home made and canned. Home made was so much better!

After our dough had its time in the fridge we rolled it out and lined out tins.

Ready for delicious goodness.

We then filled some with almond cream and topped them with the sliced poached pears and with the others we mixed together almond cream and apple pie filling and filled our tarts. We then topped these with slivered almonds ready for the oven.

My Little boys ready for the oven.

We baked them at 180 degrees celsius until golden and cooked on the bottom. The pear tarts took less time then the apple tarts.

Mmmm warm pear tart straight from the oven anyone?

After they came out we glazed them to give a nice shine for that extra professional look :)

YUMO!!