All purpose flour is your best bet for nearly all pastry.
Is pastry flour is best used for laminated dough.
Croissants take it here up a notch and add yeast and milk to the dough which makes the pastries richer rise more and end up more bread like.
The term laminated dough refers to any pastry dough that has been rolled and shaped in a way in which many layers are created of dough alternating and fat.
A traditional puff pastry recipe mixes flour salt butter and water adds a series of rollouts folds and turns and yields a croissant or other pastry marked by multiple flaky layers.
The two most common types of laminated dough are puff pastry and croissants.
We recently hosted bakery owners andy and jackie king at our baking education center here in norwich vt where they taught a delightful class in laminated dough the multi layered buttery dough used for croissants and other wonderful pastries.
The dough is laminated by rolling or pinning.
Pastry dough needs a flour with enough protein to hold all the fats together.
Puff pastry is the simplest form of laminated dough with just butter folded into a basic dough of flour water and salt croissants take it one step further and add yeast and milk to the dough which make the pastries richer rise more and end up more bread like danishes palmier cookies kouign amann and sticky.
My recipe for puff pastry uses pastry flour that i make by combining all purpose and cake flour.
How to laminate dough.
With puff pastry we fold the butter into a basic dough of flour water and salt.
Flours can vary depending upon what laminated dough you are making.
Cake flour won t have enough structure.
Puff pastry will indeed create a super flaky pie crust.
This 3 layer dough butter dough package is then flattened and folded however many times it takes to get the number of layers the maker is after.
Generally speaking if the dough uses yeast the flour is bread flour which has a high protein count making it possible for the item to retain its height while the heat sets it.
Every laminated dough be it puff pastry croissant or danish begins its life as a thick slab of butter encased in a dough envelope.
It is encased with butter and then folded in various ways depending upon the method used.
However too much protein when overworked by the lamination process will create a tough dough.
The dough used to create brioche pastries is non laminated yeast based dough which is mixed with butter and eggs.
Methods of making puff pastry.
What pastries use laminated dough.
But it s also a time consuming and exacting process.
Croissant and danish pastry are made from laminated dough that is prepared in much the same way as puff pastry but uses yeast in the dough base.
Bread flou r will get too tough.
Prior to the kings appearance at the education center we asked andy if he d like to write a blog on the subject.
