Friday Pie-Day: Quick Puff Pastry

Puff pastry is something that I've only tried to make again recently, after several failed attempts usually resulted in some pretty unpuffed pastry (such as this Chicken Soup Pie I made).

However, it's something that I wanted to get right, as although there's no shame in buying shop-bought pastry every now and again, it's always alot more satisfying to say that you've made pastry from scratch yourself, isn't it? (When it turns out right of course!)

So I was completed surprised then, when I made this block of puff pastry which just rose and rose!

And you know what? It really doesn't take as long as you think.

The 'proper' way of making puff pastry uses both lard/shortening and butter, where you first make a dough with the lard and flour, before then enveloping the block of butter in. Add in various stages of chilling and rolling, and you eventually get your puff pastry - well, that's the gist of it anyway.

This quick version doesn't contain lardy lard, so reduces the number of stages by taking away that initial faff. As you look through the steps below, it might still seem like an arduous process, but if you just try it out once, you'll be surprised at how quick it is. Plus if you stick the dough in the freezer instead of chilling it too inbetween stages as suggested below, you cut down the time even more...

Quick Puff Pastry

Print-friendly recipe

Makes approx 600g:

250g butter, diced, at room temperature
250g plain flour
Pinch of salt
Some cold water



1) Sift the flour into a large bowl with the salt. Rub in the butter to a breadcrumb mixture.


2) Pour in a few tablespoons of cold water and start to bring the mixture together. Add a tablespoon of water at a time as needed as you work the mixture into a soft dough.


3) Wrap and freeze for 10 minutes.


4) Roll the pastry out into a long rectangle.


5) Fold the top third down...


6) ...then fold the bottom third back up over the top.


7) Turn the dough 90 degrees, then repeat steps 4-6. Wrap and freeze again for 10 minutes.
You can then repeat steps 4-6 two or three more times if you want your pastry to puff up really high! I repeated them twice to create the puff pastry shown at the top of the post - I wanted to make sure it looked like puff pastry!

8) You should then take the pastry out 20 minutes before you wish to roll it out to use.

If you want to make the pastry the night before, put the pastry in the fridge at step 7 instead of the freezer, taking out 20 minutes before rolling out. And if you don't have the freezer space, you can chill the pastry instead at double the time stated.

Once made, the unbaked pastry will keep for 3 days in the fridge, and for about 4 weeks in the freezer.

You might want to use this print-friendly recipe for reference.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie-Day adventures.