Traditional French Puff Pastry

Ingredients

• 285 g all-purpose flour
• 140 g cold water (Use cold water.)
• 0.25 tsp white vinegar (Optional; helps prevent the dough from oxidizing and turning gray in the refrigerator. It does not noticeably affect the final flavor.)
• 30 g butter (Softened; mixed into the détrempe.)
• 2 tsp salt (Do not omit; it brings out the flavor of the dough.)
• 227 g butter (For the butter block. High-quality European-style butter is recommended because it has a richer flavor and higher fat content than traditional butter.)

Steps

1. 1

   Make the détrempe. Combine the flour, cold water, optional vinegar, and salt in a bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix until a tight, firm dough forms. The dough is intentionally worked enough to develop the gluten so it can support the butter during baking; a stand mixer is recommended because the dough is quite firm, though it may also be mixed by hand.

2. 2

   Cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 20 minutes. After resting, the dough should feel noticeably softer as the gluten relaxes.

3. 3

   Prepare the butter block by shaping the 227 g of butter into an even block suitable for enclosing and laminating with the chilled détrempe. The source excerpt introduces this step but does not provide the remaining shaping or lamination instructions.

Notes

The supplied source is truncated behind a Substack subscription prompt immediately after the heading “Step 2: The butter block.” It does not include the butter-block shaping, turns, chilling intervals, rolling dimensions, baking instructions, or final yield. The recipe should therefore be treated as incomplete. Vinegar is optional and is used primarily to help prevent oxidation in refrigerated dough.

Nutrition per serving

• pastry
• baking
• French
• laminated dough
• buttery
• vegetarian
• make-ahead