Sourdough Puff Pastry

Homemade flakey sourdough puff pastry is delicious and decadent. Real butter in between the layers is so much more flavourful than store-bought puff pastry, which often doesn’t use butter.

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.

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 glutens (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.

So, day 1 you make the detempre, the initial dough. It’s flour, sourdough starter, a pinch of salt, a little melted butter and cold water. This is roughly kneaded into a ball of dough, then placed in the refrigerator for at least 8 hours and up to 20.

I cover the bowl with a damp towel. There’s no need for kneading this dough. Unlike 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. There is no need for the yeast. So, a starter fed within the last 10 hours is perfect to use.

Day 2 is 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. If you find the butter is melting too quickly, chill it after each fold.

The butter needs to stay cold so it doesn’t ooze out of the sides, but it’s also important to keep a little pliable, so its a similar consistency to the dough. This way it will incorporate consistently in the dough and you won’t have broken up pieces of butter in there at the end that won’t bake evenly.

After laminating the dough, it can be kept in the refrigerator to chill for at least two hours or until needed, or frozen for later use. I like making a double batch of puff pastry so I pop one in the freezer too. It is a big effort to make it so you may as well make some extra!

Detempre

Melt 30g of the butter and set aside.

In a bowl, add the flour, sourdough starter, salt, water and melted butter.  Mix it until it forms a ball, then place it in the refrigerator for 8-20 hours.

Lamination

The following day, take the remaining 200g of butter out of the refrigerator and slice it into 1/2 cm slices. Take two sheets baking paper and lay out the slices of butter on sheet. Place the second sheet 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 a little pliable and not rock hard. 

Take the 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.) This is turn one. 

The dough is now a vertical rectangle. Turn it one quarter turn clockwise, so that it is now a horizontal rectangle. Roll the pastry out into another 20 x 30cm rectangle and repeat the folding from before, ensuring you keep turning it the same direction to keep even layers. Wrap the dough in the baking paper that the butter was in and chill it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. That was turn two.

Each time you roll it, take care not to push down too much on the dough. Roll but don’t bear your weight on the rolling pin or you’ll displace the butter.

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, chilling every time you’ve completed two turns. Do this  twice. In total the dough should be turned 6 times. 

At this point the butter should be incorporated into the dough and there shouldn’t be visible clumps remaining. If there are still clumps, 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.

Have you made this? Tag me and let me know! @home_grown_happinessnz