Puff Pastry

Puff pastry is a laminated dough that is similar to croissants or danish dough except in the make up. Puff pastry usually has about 1200 layers to the dough while croissants and danish have closer to 950. This is achieved by either doing 6 single or letter folds or 4 book folds, which is how we did it here. Puff pastry also differs in that the dough does not have yeast in it. So the height that the product achieves is just from the lamination. It is also laminated with a higher fat percentage, 40%.

This formula is from the Michel Suas Book Advanced Bread and Pastry, A Professional Approach, Pg. 502

Formula: 

100% Bread flour, 2.8 kg

48% Water, 1.344 kg

10% Butter, 280 g

2% Salt, 56 g

1% Lemon juice, 28 g

1% Malt, 28 g

Total: 162%

Butter for lamination: 50%, 2.268 kg (about 4 blocks)

MOP:

Mixing: mix all ingredients (except the butter for lamination) to incorporate, 3-4 minutes on first speed. Transfer to a lightly floured sheet pan, form into a flat square, cover with plastic.

Resting: allow dough to rest covered in the blast chiller for an hour.

Lamination: 4 book folds, let rest 20-30 minutes between each fold.

• Lock in butter, just like you would with croissant or danish dough.
• Sheet out your dough for locking in. You want the dough to be long enough to fold into the center once and then fold over like a book.
• Take your 2.268 kg of butter for roll-in. Place all, four, blocks of butter next to each other, place the butter between a folded over guitar sheet (a strong clear plastic sheet). Soften the butter with a rolling pin by hitting the butter. When the block starts to loose its shape use your bench scrapper to cut the excess butter off the sides and place this on top (this also helps distribute the cold and warmer areas). Continue in this manner until the butter block feels like one solid, plastic and elastic, you want the size of the beurrage to be proportionate to the amount of dough you have. If the butter starts to get warm, your finger leaves an impression when you touch it, then put it back in the cooler until its a solid cold block (when the butter is a solid block it is called a beurrage). This is really important because once you do the lock-in step you cant adjust for errors in temperature. Set the butter in the cooler until you have rolled out the detrempe.
• Take the beurrage out of the cooler and place this in the middle of the detrempe. You want the detrempe to be the same width as the beurrage. If its too wide you can use your hands to re shape the detrempe. Fold the sides over into the middle of the beurrage. If you have a gap in the middle thats okay, you'll next want to use your bench scraper and cut the edges that feel that there is no butter. You can place these cut portions on top over the gap/seem. Roll out the detrempe to the size of the half sheet pan. At this stage you can trim the detrempe if necessary to make it a perfect rectangle. 
• Use your rolling pin to press the detrempe, making it and the beurrage feel like a uniform shape. The beurrage is locked-in.
• You are going to next begin tourage, laminating the dough. Turn the dough 90 degrees so that the seem is facing you. Roll out the dough so it is the length of your half sheet pan. Imagine the dough in thirds, fold the end thirds in overlapping each other. You should now have a rolled up blanket look to the dough. Cover the dough with plastic and label: 1st turn:time finished. Put the dough into the blast chiller (70 degrees) or refrigerator for 20-30 .

Sheeting: let the puff pastry rest for at least 30 minutes after the last fold. Sheet the puff pastry out to 1/8" thick. It will be much larger then a sheet pan size, if so lightly dust the layer and place another layer of puff pastry on top. Cover and refrigerate when you are not using the puff pastry.

Baking: 350°F in a convection oven. Bake time varies according to make up.