Flaky Pastry
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Mix flour and salt in a bowl.
Rub in one-third of the fat.
Gradually add water until dough is slightly more moist than short pastry.
Turn dough onto a floured surface and roll into a long strip.
Laminate
Divide remaining fat in two.
Place one portion of fat on dough in small pieces and lightly dredge with flour.
Fold dough evenly in thirds, turn it, and roll it out again.
Repeat process with other portion of fat.
Chill pastry in a cool place for 10–20 minutes after each addition of fat.
Finish
Before using, roll pastry to about ½ inch thick or desired thickness.
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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the gluten network that gives the pastry its structure.
- Clarified dripping or lard
- Fat coats flour particles and melts in layers, creating flakiness.
- Water
- Hydrates the flour so the dough can form and roll out.
The step that matters
Chilling between fat additions. Chilling keeps the fat solid so it stays in distinct layers instead of melting into the dough. Those layers puff during baking and produce flakiness.
“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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