To Choose and Prepare Butter for Puff Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the ice bath
Fill a pail with cold spring water and add the pounded ice and saltpetre or salt.
Chill the butter
Break the butter into small pieces and place it in the ice-water mixture.
Let the butter sit for 20-30 minutes until firm and solid.
Mould the butter on a marble slab or paste-board and immerse it again in the iced water until ready to use.
When ready to use, press the butter in a clean cloth or napkin.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Firm, cold butter stays in solid pieces that create flaky layers when laminated into pastry.
The step that matters
Keeping the butter cold and firm. If butter softens, it blends into the dough instead of staying in separate sheets, so layers are lost. Keeping it chilled between shaping and use protects the layering that gives puff pastry its rise.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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