Homemade flaky sourdough puff pastry is delicious and decadent. Real butter rolled in the layers makes it so flavourful, light and flaky.

Sourdough Puff-Pastry

I prefer sourdough puff pastry to regular as sourdough’s signature tang adds flavour + the fermenting of the dough makes it easier to roll.

Sourdough may add on an extra day in time, but takes away some of the effort of rolling that traditional puff pastry requires.

The Puff Pastry Process

Puff pastry is rolled out and folded multiple times to create the iconic layers, and the ‘puff’. The fermented sourdough base dough is so pliable and doesn’t resist rolling the way that regular dough often can if it’s not allowed to rest.

Traditional puff needs 2 hours resting between each couple of turns to rest the gluten (if there are 6 turns in total, that’s a lot of resting time!).

This sourdough puff pastry requires a shorter amount of refrigerated resting during the folds, only really to keep the butter chilled.

Day 1

Is the day to make the detempre, the initial dough. It’s flour, sourdough starter, a little salt, melted butter and cold water.

This is roughly worked into a ball of dough, then placed in the refrigerator, in an airtight container for at least 8 hours and up to 20.

There’s no need for kneading this dough. Unlike sourdough bread dough, you don’t want to develop the glutens too much.

There’s no need to make a levain with your sourdough starter either. This pastry relies on the bacteria to ferment the flour, and the water that evaporates from the butter gives it the rise.

Discard starter can be used in this recipe.

Day 2

Lamination day. This is when a rather large amount of butter is rolled into the dough.

The dough is folded, turned and rolled out about 6 times to incorporate the butter and establish those layers. In between some of the folds (around every 2 fold) , the dough will be chilled for 20 minutes to keep the butter cold.

The butter needs to stay cold so it doesn’t ooze out of the sides or melt into the dough. However it’s also important to keep a little pliable, so its a similar consistency to the dough. .

Step by Step Lamination

Take 200g of room temperature butter and slice it into 4 slices. Take two sheets baking paper and lay out the slices of butter on sheet into a square. Place the second sheet of baking paper overtop. Using a rolling pin, roll the butter out into a 20 x 15cm rectangle.

Place the butter in the refrigerator for around 10 minutes to firm up slightly, but ensure it’s still pliable and not rock hard.

Take the detempre dough from the refrigerator and roll it out in front of you into a 20 x 30cm rectangle.

Now, take the butter from the refrigerator and remove one sheet of baking paper. Lay the unwrapped side down on the bottom 2 thirds of the dough rectangle.

Fold over the top third, over the butter, and press it down. Take the bottom third and fold that over like a pamphlet (the bottom third will be both dough and butter.)

The dough is now a horizontal rectangle. Turn it one quarter turn clockwise, so that it is now a vertical rectangle. Gently push with a rolling pin a few times along the length of the dough to help work in the butter.

Roll the pastry out into another 20 x 30cm rectangle and fold it once again into a pamphlet.

Turn the pamphlet 90 degrees and roll it out again into a 20 x 30cm rectangle, and fold it up into a pamphlet.

That was two turns and rolls in total. Now the folded dough needs to rest in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes remove it from the refrigerator and lay it out on the bench so it is a vertical rectangle.

Roll it out again into a 20 x 30 cm rectangle and repeat the folding, and rolling to complete another two turns. Chill the dough for 20 minutes.

Repeat this process one more time, so in total the dough was turned and rolled a total of 6 times.

At this point the butter should be incorporated into the dough and there shouldn’t be visible shards of butter remaining. If there are still pieces of broken butter, your butter may be too cold.

Perform another set of turns for a total of 7 turns. Any more than that and you may overwork the dough.

After all the turns are completed, let the dough chill for a minimum of 2 hours in the refrigerator before rolling out and baking.

Alternatively it can be frozen for up to 4 months to use at a later date. If you’re freezing it, let it thaw, but not heat up, before rolling out.

A good puff pastry will quadruple in height, and butter leakage should not be an issue. If you find your pastry is leaking, or it’s not rising well it is probably the butter that hasn’t been incorporated evenly.

Puff pastry can take a little practice, but even if it’s not perfect, it’s butter based pastry: it’s always going to be yum.

One of my favourite ways to use puff pastry is by making flaky sourdough palmiers. So good!