Quick Puff Pastry Dough

above: mini puff pastry with poached pear and chocolate ganache

This quick version has saved time in the first step - instead of pounding a whole block of butter, cubed butter directly mixed into the dough. However, the basic skill and know-how on rolling, dough manipulation, gluten development, temperature control, etc, are still essentials, be it simplified or classic recipe. I learnt mine from reading quite a few books and practices.

Quick Puff Pastry Dough: * recipe from Dessert Circus by Jacques Torres*

7 Tbps (100g) unsalted butter, melted, cool to room temperature

4 cups (500g) plain flour

2 1/2 tsps salt

about 1 cup (220g) water

1 1/4 cups+ 1 1/2 Tbps (300g) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, frozen

Direction:

• Pic 1 : Well-combine melted butter, flour, salt and water until a dough is formed. Add in frozen butter cubes, make sure they're evenly distributed. Pat dough into 8" x 10" x 1" (thick) rectangle, wrap it in plastic and rest in fridge at least 1 hour, max. 12 hours.
• Pic 2: Lightly flour the work table, roll dough to 10" x 23" rectangle, fold the short sides to the middle but don't overlap (it's called book fold). During rolling, don't add to much flour otherwise your pastry will be tough. Whenever you feel the dough sticky, chill in fridge and let it get harden again. And anytime the dough refuses to spread out, also, rest it in fridge for 15 minutes or so; the gluten in dough will be relax again.
• Pic 3: right after the book fold, fold one half over the other half. Rotate the dough so the seam is on your right. You have completed fold #1
• Repeat the folding process by rolling out the dough into a 10" x 23" rectangle again and Pic 2 and Pic 3. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in fridge for at least an hour.
• Then give the dough two more whole folding processes. After that let the dough rest in fridge for at least an hour before use. At this point it can be store in the fridge for a day or freezer.

To make this pear pastry:

• Preheat oven 425 - 400F. Roll dough (take the amount you need) to 1/2 cm-thick, use a cookie-cutter to cut out small circle, lay them on a large baking sheet. Arrange thinly-sliced poached pear in the center but stay away from the rim so that the rim will puff up in hot oven, a "cup" is formed then. Bake the pastries in 425 - 400F oven for 10 minutes, then lowered to 350F and bake until they turn golden brown. Let them cool on a rack
• Pipe the chocolate ganache, arrange more poached pear on pastries right before you serve.

To poach the pears:

• Use the pears that able to hold the shape after poaching, like packhams, but not anjou. Peeled, seeded and quartered.
• In a small pot, add 2: 1 white wine + water, raw sugar to taste, 2 cinnamon sticks and 3 cloves; bring them to boil. Add pears and simmer over very low heat for 15 minutes. Until the whole things cool off chill them in fridge. Poached pear tastes even better on the next day.

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