Iced Puff Pastry Recipe
For some people, “traditional puff pastry” is something you buy in the frozen aisle of the grocery store. For others it’s something that takes research, time, effort and planning to accomplish — folding butter and stiff dough over a course of hours. But for Thermomix fans there is an easy alternative: a rough puff pastry “cheat” that harnesses the power of the world’s best kitchen machine to chop ice into tiny crystals. (It’s still a hands-on labor of love, just a little easier now.)
Puff pastry on a whim!
Watch the video to see how ice and butter commingle with flour and salt to create tiny beads of dough for pockets of steam. Voila! Now we can serve delightfully seductive vol-au-vent canapés on a whim — to anyone at any time, without having to go to the store for frozen pastry. When a recipe is this easy there’s plenty of room for testing and taste trials and oooh… just think of all the fun fillings you can create.
- 90 g ice cubes
- 180 g frozen unsalted butter, in pieces (to cut frozen butter, first heat knife blade in hot water.)
- 200 g flour
- ½ tsp. salt
- 2 Tbsp water
- Put ice cubes, butter, flour and salt into Thermomix in the order listed. Chop 7 seconds/speed 7. Mix 5 seconds/REVERSE/speed 5. Knead 3 min/intermittent dough speed while adding the water.
- As shown in the video, compress into a bundle. Wrap in silicone mat or parchment paper and refrigerate for about 30 minutes before proceeding.
- Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas. 6 (oven must be fully preheated). Proceed by rolling dough, dusting with flour as needed and folding repeatedly as shown in the video. Working swiftly, roll out so it makes a sheet of about 1 cm. in thickness. Cut into desired shapes or prepare vol-au-vents for filling. Brush with egg wash, milk or diluted cream. Bake for about 30 minutes. (For the first 15 minutes they will look soft and ‘wet’ but do not be discouraged as they will firm up and become crisp in the second half of baking.) Keep watch during the last few minutes and remove from oven when golden. (You can also remove from the oven after about 15 minutes to add a filling and return to finish baking.)
Helpful Hints:
- Helpful tools for rolling puff pastry in a Thermomix kitchen (these are not necessary, but really nice to have): silicone baking mat
, highly rated non-stick rolling pin
, puff pastry cutters for vol-au-vents
- Watch the video for more instructions about technique.
Oooooh, I so want to try these – your video was so inspiring!! And those photos of that flaky pastry… divine! Wow wow wow!! Thank you so much – I had no idea vol-au-vents were so easy! :)
Jo — my next plan is to make a dairy free version of these using coconut butter. I promise you will be first to hear about it!
Ooooh!!! I want a Thermomix!! We don’t have these in the US! I am so jealous!
Allison, I feel for you truly. You can buy it in Canada, though.
Hi, I like the idea of using ice and will give it a try. In respect of your footnote I too have great problems with making rough puff and really all other types of pastry. I live in Singapore where we have 100% humidity all of the time and I think it’s this that causes the problem.
Thanks for stopping by to comment here Will — I’ll be curious to see how it goes for you over there in Singapore… Cheers!
Hola me gustaria saber el precio de thermomix TM-31 gracias
Hello Lucy! Yo no vendo Thermomix, pero para obtener información sobre precios, por favor, siga los enlaces en esta página. ¡Gracias!
Querida Lucy – este sitio tiene que vender Thermomix. Para obtener más información acerca de los precios Thermomix, por favor, siga las instrucciones que aparecen en esta página. Gracias por usar este sitio ;-)
The reason why the puff pastry might not of risen might be the butter was “chopped” too fine and then the dough was mixed too much. What you’re basically creating here is a german blitz puff pastry dough. In order to create flakes that rise you do need a fairly rough mix of your butter and dry ingredients.
Or if it was the humidity you could try lowering the % of ice by 10-20% and seeing how it works.
Cheers
I can’t wait to try this. Every morning I wake up and hope I find the time. Soon! It looks fantastic!
Ahh yes Maureen, I know the feeling. With Thermomix in the house there are always more recipes than there is time! If you don’t get around to making this one, I’m sure another fun recipe will take it’s place and your Thermomix will be kept busy no matter what ;-)
Thanks heaps Helene! Every now and then I get a sausage roll craving! This was the puffiest pastry I’ve ever made, and hit the spot indeed. I’m really excited about using this recipe again, thank you : )
So glad to hear this Jodie. I’m never sure how it will work for our friends in hot places. Now I’m hungry for a sausage roll!
did you ever get the dairy free version working Helene?
Sorry Barbara, not yet! Haven’t had a minute to do all I need to do… still catching up on emails from last month!
For people in hot climates the following might help.
Instead of using a rolling pin, try using a straight sided bottle filled with ice water.
Grannysmith
Great tip Helen — thanks for your input!
Hi Helene, I just came across this recipe. I would like to use this recipe to make cheese straws. Can you perhaps advise me as to when the cheese would be added? Perhaps when doing the folds? Or is this a bad idea? Thank you.
Elsie
I am attempting the puff pastry this morning. I am in Western Australia and the temp here
today is 23c. and the humidity it 83o/o will let you know how I go. (pastry chilling at the moment)
Great Kathleen… fingers crossed here! Sorry to say I’ve not experienced cooking/baking in WA…. but sure wish I could be there to try this with you ;-)
I am in Heaven.. This recipe worked so well. I made the sausage rolls and a few little volauvents .. I can feel the butter going straight to my hips but I don’t even care. So delicious. Wish I could post a pic to show how they turned out. Thank you for this recipe.
YAY Kathleen! I know exactly what you mean. It’s all worth it, isn’t it? I mean… we don’t make and eat those EVERY DAY do we? So a little bit of heaven on the hips is okay every now and then ;-)
If you have a photo, would SO love to see it! Can you post it on the facebook page?
Thank you for that Helene, I have posted a pic :)
Hello
I will be attempting to make puff pastry for the first time and will be using this recipe. Just waiting for my butter to freeze and off I go! Wish me luck! I´ll let you know how it comes out :)
Wishing you luck and hoping it turned out! (I’m not sure where you live Sandra but I’ve had mixed feedback on this from hotter climates…)
Hi :)
One more great receipt!! I used marg instead of butter and it worked just fine (though it must be way better with the real deal)!
Thanks again Helen :)*
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This is great news Joana, and great photos too! Thanks so much for posting and linking to them. I hope people click on the links above to see your pastry successes. Keep on mixing!!!
I hope this isn’t a silly question – you use plain flour?
Yes, plain flour Catherine… we don’t get much fancy flour here in Canada. It’s plain, and it’s not the self-raising kind, not ‘pastry flour’ either. Just plain. Hope this helps!