Blitz Puff Pastry

Hey guys!  Those of you who follow me on Facebook probably already know that I'm in a Baking lab this quarter so there's gonna be baking-related posts for a bit!  Are you excited?!  Alright!

Now this also means that we're going to be using scaled measurements here - I gotta do it in school, so might as well make it a habit of doing in real life!  So bust out your digital scales!

Hope you guys are doing well, we're just finalizing all the little details for the wedding (22 days!!) and staying busy - as always.

So puff pastry.  Tons of layers, tons of butter.  But who has time to fold and turn, fold and turn, fold and turn?! That's where blitz puff pastry comes in.  It doesn't quite rise as much as regular puff pastry, but it rises enough for presentation, and it's a whole lot quicker!  Let's get to it!

Ingredients:

8 oz. bread flour
8 oz. pastry flour
1 lb. unsalted butter, softened
1/4 oz. salt
8 oz. cold water

My digital's batteries went out when I started the recipe so I had to bust out my spring scale.  Definitely not nearly as accurate as a digital or a balance scale - but you have to be resourceful with what you have!

So now we sift our flours and salt together.  You could definitely use a mesh strainer or an actual drum sifter, but our chef said in a pinch, a whisk works just fine too.

Just for fun, let's discuss the 3 purposes of sifting (because let's be honest, when a recipe tells me to sift, I rarely do, based on the shear fact that I'm lazy and don't want to go through all the trouble.  Guess this Baking class is going to change my evil ways!)

#1 - to remove lumps - makes sense
#2 - to incorporate air - this is the big one, ever notice that after you sift dry ingredients they seem to amount to more mass?  It's the air!
#3 - to create a homogenous mass - another big point.  You want your individual ingredients to lose their sole identities to become one happy family.

And now we're gonna cut in our butter.  You want to "crush" the fat into the flour, not "squeeze" it in there.  Picture yourself making the "I want money" gesture, not the "I want to choke the chicken".  You know what I mean?

The whisk doesn't belong in there (can you tell I'm rusty?  Or rushed.)

Once you have the majority of the big chunks of butter incorporated into the flour, make a well in the center and pour in your cold water.

Use a bowl scraper or wooden spoon to incorporate the dough into the center until it forms a unified mass.  Gentle now... we don't want to over work the dough.  On a lightly floured surface, form the dough into a rectangle loaf.

Roll dough into a rectangle that is about 1/4 to 1/8 inch thick.

Fold the left and right sides toward the center, leaving a finger-width gap in between.

Then fold the sides together.

Then roll out into a rectangle about 1/4 to 1/8 thick again, and repeat entire process 2 more times.

Wrap up your finished pastry and place in the freezer for at least 8 hours or overnight.

And bam, you'll have puff pastry to use at your own discretion!  Next couple of posts, I'll show you what I did with mine!

Hope you all have a great Easter holiday, if you're celebrating.  Otherwise, just have a good rest of the weekend =)

Baked Salmon w/ Pesto Puff Pastry & Corn

Remember that Lowell EGO light that I said I was getting?  Well... it came in the mail this past weekend and my verdict???  I.  Absolutely.  Love.  It.  LOVE IT. 

This salmon dish was just a quick Saturday night meal that was ready in about 30 minutes, just using what I basically had on hand!  I just love how the light gave such vibrance to the photos!  I hardly had to do any editing (besides some basic cropping/sharpening/noise reduction).  So hopefully over the next couple of months I can work more on the "styling" part of my photos.  Any tips?  Suggestions?  Any would help!

So if you're looking for something quick and tasty, this salmon dish is definitely for you!




Ingredients:

2 6 oz. salmon fillets
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or less if you like it less spicy)
salt and pepper, to taste
olive oil, for rubbing
1 & 1/2 cup frozen corn
1/2 cup pesto
2 rectangles of puff pastry (cut a little bigger than the salmon fillets)

Preheat oven to 400 F. 

Rub salmon fillets with olive oil and season both sides with cayenne pepper, salt, and freshly ground black pepper.

Place puff pastry pieces on a greased baking sheet and bake according to package directions, or until golden brown.

Place salmon skin-side down in an oven-proof skillet and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until salmon is cooked through.

(My salmon and puff pastry were pretty much done at about the same time, so it worked perfectly)

Cook frozen corn in microwave according to package directions.

Spread a good amount of the pesto on top of the puff pastry and top with salmon and corn. 

Seriously.  I could not have had better ingredients to work with.  So colorful, so flavorful.  SO PERFECT. 

I asked Andy what he thought of the addition of the puff pastry (whether it was really necessary or added anything to the dish) and he said he actually enjoyed it's contrast with the delicate salmon.  So major score!  I loved this dinner and plan on making it many many times over!  Enjoy guys!