Easy Peasy Homemade Rough Puff Pastry

It’s virtually impossible to find affordable all-butter puff pastry without plastic in Ireland, but that doesn’t mean we have to go without. Anyone who bakes will know that just how complicate true puff pastry is to make but rough puff pastry is a breeze.

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I found this 10 minute recipe on the Aussie site The Whoot and I can testify to it’s tastiness. The recipe is actually credited to Gordon Ramsey and is hosted on BBC Good Food. This is my tweaked version of that recipe.

• 250g strong plain flour
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• 250g butter, at room temperature, but not soft
• about 150ml cold water

1. Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl.
2. Roughly break the butter in small chunks,
3. Add the chunks of butter to the bowl of flour and salt.
4. Rub the butter chunks into the flour and salt loosely. Don’t aim for a fine breadcrumb texture as you would with shortcrust, you need to see bits of butter.
5. Make a well in the mix and pour in about two-thirds of the cold water
6. Mix until you have a firm rough dough adding extra water if needed.
7. Put in a bowl, cover with a plate and leave to rest for 20 mins in the fridge.
8. Turn out onto a lightly floured board, knead gently and form into a smooth rectangle.
9. Roll the dough in one direction only, until 3 times the width, about 20 x 50cm. Keep edges straight and even. Don’t overwork the butter streaks; you should have a marbled effect.
10. Fold the top third down to the centre, then the bottom third up and over that.
11. Give the dough a quarter turn (to the left or right) and roll out again to three times the length.
12. Fold as before
13. Put in a bowl, cover with a plate and leave for at least 20 mins before rolling to use.

If you’re using this for a pie you’ll invariably end up with leftover pastry, which is perfect for these cheese straws! Here’s a simple recipe to make some.

1. Heat your oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6
2. Form your left over pastry into a rectangle.
3. Sprinkle your leftover rough puff pastry with grated cheese. I used cheddar but you can use any hard cheese. You can also spread pesto or mustard on the pastry before sprinkling cheese if you’d like.
4. Cut your pastry into 1cm strips (or as close to this as possible) and approx. 10cm long.
5. Twist the top of the pastry to the right and the bottom of the pastry to the left to make a spiral. Some cheese will fall out but I found that if you twist top and bottom separately, you don’t lose as much.
6. Place on a baking sheet and put into the pre-heated oven.
7. Cook until golden, approx. 12-18 minutes.
8. Cool and enjoy.

More Staple Food Recipes

You can find some more of my staple food recipes here

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