Puff pastry is a glorious thing, especially when it's homemade. Last week, I wanted to make king cake* (the one I filled with banana almond cream is pictured above). Initially I was going to buy ready-made puff pastry; the thought of homemade puff pastry was very intimidating. I remembered Kathleen Flinn's struggle with puff pastry at Le Cordon Bleu, where she'd go home after class and practice making puff pastry in her tiny Paris apartment. However, when the local grocery store only had the Pepperidge Farm variety made with hydrogenated vegetable oil, I gritted my teeth and decided to make my own (my beloved Trader Joe's reputedly carries all-butter puff pastry, but I could not find it).
Puff pastry works by composing multiple (we're talking hundreds, more on the exact number later) layers of high-butter dough alternating with high-flour dough. As the pastry bakes, the water from the butter layer evaporates and separates the flour layers, creating hundreds of fine layers of crisp brown dough. Traditional puff pastry starts with the high-flour dough on the outside, wrapping around a healthy block of butter. The package is then rolled out, folded upon each other tri-fold wallet fashion (think folding a piece of paper to fit an envelope), then chilled. This process is repeated six times to make 3^6 + 1 = 730 layers. Crazy, isn't it?
