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Help With Puff Pastry Dough


cstone

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Hi Folks,

I need advice. I have frozen phyllo dough. I WANT puff pastry dough. I have purchased the ready to bake dough at WalMart, but found it difficult to work with and when I baked things the dough was thick, mushy and a bit greasy. Am I doing something wrong or is that dough not the puff pastry type ? As far as I understand, when a recipe calls for puff pastry, it should be thin and fluffy, not thin and crisp. Advice needed.

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Walmart, Soriana, and as far as I know the rest of the panoply of major supermarkets in Mexico sell fresh hojaldre (puff pastry) in their bakery sections.  It sells in a styrofoam tray, wrapped in shrink wrap and labeled hojaldre.  Look for it by name.  Where I live, it sells for 94 pesos/kilo at Walmart, 110 at Superama, 55 at Chedraui, and 3 kilos for 88 pesos at Costco.

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While I've never worked with the pastry dough at Costco, I've worked with both phyllo and puff pastry many times. Phyllo is composed of single sheets,  which require brushing with butter between the layers and keeping the pile of sheets covered with a damp cloth while you work. Takes a bit of practice.

Puff pastry requires coming to almost room temperature first, and gently forming into a pre greased pie pan or baking sheet. (Cut off excess and roll with butter, sugar and cinnamon)  It should then be punctured all around the base and sides with a fork to release air so that it doesn't puff too much where you want it to be flat. Also, the sides can simply be turned over roughly by hand into what's called a galette, then punctured and filled with any lightly sweetened fruit. Recipe below:

 Preheat oven to 375 
Use ½ package (1 sheet) puff pastry, brought to room temperature for 45 minutes. 
Roll out the dough on parchment paper to make it a little thinner. Then transfer to a cookie sheet and loosely roll the edges up (so the juices won’t run out) then add the fruit mix. 
Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes, watch the rolled crust so it doesn’t burn. 
Filling: 
Fruit of your choice, tossed with the following: 
1/3 C sugar 
1/8 tsp cinnamon 
1 tsp lemon juice 
1 tsp lemon zest 
2 tsp flour or  2 T cornstarch for thickening juices

Serve with ice cream or whipped cream for heavenly delight

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The internet and youtube offer a variety of "rough" puff pastry recipes. Super easy to make - it is all technique, quality butter and flour. Google "Gordon Ramsay puff pastry". I am still losing weight, and have not tried this treat. I used to make Salmon Wellington (or en croute) for family get togethers, it always went down very well.

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Wow ! Lots of interesting comments and tips. I have used phyllo dough before. There is a box in my freexer as we speak. Phyllo is not what the recipes call for.

More Liana, the dough you speak of is the dough I have purchased at WalMart.

It just seems to be too thick and it is doughy when I bake it.  Am I supposed to roll it out until it is thinner ?

I have done that and it doesn't seem to help. I thought that overhandling dough would make it tough.

I have asked for and used pizza dough from WalMart with no problem. I just used it for pizza.

I want to make several recipes and just want to learn how to work with what is available. I am NOT going to start making it from scratch.

La Comer and Fresko are wonderful stores. Love them. However, I do not have a car and am not making a foray into GDL just for dough, especially when I have a WalMart just down the road. ;) 

Haven't tried CostCo's puff pastry. Anyone here ever tried it ?

Thanks,

CDS

 

 

 

 

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Cstone: on a new thread, I'm going to ask which electric car is better, and see how long it takes before someone tells me how to build my own... and you will benefit from this knowledge, I'm sure, as you fill your vehicle with dough.

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Some people just like to throw money away I guess - the markup on those store bought sheets is at least six times the cost of the ingredients. I was also watching a documentary on Netflix about how the movement away from home prepared foods, financed by the fast and prepped food industry, is actually changing our society for the worse. They also use the most inexpensive ingredients they can, like palm oil. Next time you are in a store contemplating a purchase of "easy" food, look at the ingredient list and tell me how many of those items are in your pantry. The fast food and snacks are always in the centre of the store, and by necessity, this where lower income people have to shop. The price of soda has dropped by 7%, whereas fresh produce has increased over 40%

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I guess you should just stay home then, Chillin. Me, I live in this world. I drive a car. I buy gasoline. I even cook... a lot... but I'll be damned if I'm going to grind my own paprika or make my own English muffins. I pay too much for airline tickets, too, like everyone else, and even if they start charging 5 bucks to be able to lower my tray table, I am not going to be looking for Wright Brothers' instructions on building a plane.

But let's look at this through your eyes: six times, eh? Ok, and how many times is a person going to make these? Enough times that it is worth it to invest in the bulk pricing to buy all the ingredients and the tools? Because that's what the stores do, in order to allow me to waltz in and buy a package whenever I need it. Without having to worry about how long it will take, or how long it will last in my fridge.

Of course, I did recently plant a mandarin tree, so I can avoid paying those inflated prices at the store. Mind you, I only get a crop twice a year, and it hasn't happened yet, but who needs them anyway?

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Have to say, at 60-80 pesos for more raw pastry that I need, I can afford it. Since we rarely eat out, as I make all our meals, the occasional exposure to margarine (which we never use) isn't going to hurt us. I enjoy cooking, like to bake my own bread when the mood strikes, and prefer to know what is in my food, but I am NOT making puff pastry for a once in a while culinary experiment. These are the times that I long for biscuits in a can.

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4 hours ago, cstone said:

Wow ! Lots of interesting comments and tips. I have used phyllo dough before. There is a box in my freexer as we speak. Phyllo is not what the recipes call for.

More Liana, the dough you speak of is the dough I have purchased at WalMart.

It just seems to be too thick and it is doughy when I bake it.  Am I supposed to roll it out until it is thinner ?

I have done that and it doesn't seem to help. I thought that overhandling dough would make it tough.

I have asked for and used pizza dough from WalMart with no problem. I just used it for pizza.

I want to make several recipes and just want to learn how to work with what is available. I am NOT going to start making it from scratch.

La Comer and Fresko are wonderful stores. Love them. However, I do not have a car and am not making a foray into GDL just for dough, especially when I have a WalMart just down the road. ;) 

Haven't tried CostCo's puff pastry. Anyone here ever tried it ?

Thanks,

CDS

 

 

 

 

I have bought frozen Hojaldre in thick squares (usually 5 to 6 inch squares by 2 or so inches thick) at both Walmart and SL. 

Thaw and cut off some of the slab and roll it out until it looks like the puff pastry sheets you buy in the box. 

I use for fruit open face tarts and also for mushroom/leek savory tarts.  I roll out my pastry and put back in fridge for 20+ minutes, while I cook then completely cool my filling.    

Put cooled filling onto chilled pastry and cook at high temperature (400 F) for the best puff.  Mine don't stay in oven long as the filling is pre-cooked.  

Buen provecho!

PS: I try to buy the smallest slabs in stock and use it all at once.  However, have had larger pieces than I could use at one time.  I let thaw just enough to cut off a piece to use, then refreeze the remainder.  The remainder puffed up fine, too, when used later.  

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On 1/26/2018 at 8:51 AM, ComputerGuy said:

good to know. Since the local WalMart does not have a cooler in the bakery section (therefore nothing on display except baked goods), I guess you could ask, like I do for the pizza dough.

I've never seen hojaldre in a cooler at Walmart.  It's always just out on a shelf.  Ask someone to point it out to you.

And yes, crstone, you have to roll it out to the thickness called for in your recipe. 

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5 hours ago, More Liana said:

I've never seen hojaldre in a cooler at Walmart.  It's always just out on a shelf.  Ask someone to point it out to you.

And yes, crstone, you have to roll it out to the thickness called for in your recipe. 

Really. Doesn't this kind of thing need to be kept cool?

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