After several fails in trying to make a classic puff pastry, I stoped making it myself… Until the day I tried this inverse puff pastry that I kept seeing on food blogs. It is just amazing! “To try is to adopt it” as says our famous French food blogger Mercotte.

Ingredients for a pie or two tarts 21 cm wide

Can be made the day before.

Concept/Idea

This puff pastry is both EASIER and FASTER to make than a classic puff pastry. The idea is that butter is outside, instead of inside for a classic puff pastry. This avoids butter breaking through the base dough, as it often happens when you make a classic puff pastry with cold butter. In addition to that, inverse puff pastry only needs three folds, which reduces preparation time. You wll still need to let the dough rest at least one hour between each fold, so be patient!

Ingredients

• “Floured butter” : 375g soft butter, 150g flour.
• Base dough: 350g flour, 110g melted butter, 15cl cold water, 1 table spoon white vineagr , 15g sea salt.

How to do?

Floured butter: Mix together butter and flour to obtain an homogeneous ball. You will get your hands dirty, yes! And this is normal… Roll between two sheets of greaseproof paper. Store in the fridge for at least 1h30.

Tip: To make a perfect square when rolling your dough, use the greaseproof paper. Fold the sides an, using your rolling pin, roll the dough to reach these sides. If I am not clear enough, please see pictures below…

Base dough: Blend the sea salt with water. Mix with all the other ingeredients and there again, roll into a square, of a smaller size than the floured butter. Store in the fridge for at least 1h30.

After 1h30, take the floured butter out of the paper, put the base dough in the middle (after having taken off paper too!) and seal the base dough in the floured butter, as shown on the pictures below. Roll into a long rectangle in front of you then fold twice as shown below.

Tip: You can use some flour to avoid the dough sticking on your table. However you should not use too much of it otherwise you will damage the “feuilletage” (“puffing?”). Therefore I recommend using a brush to release as much flour as possible before folding.

Wrap in plastic film and store in the fridge for one hour. Repeat after haveing turned the dough 90 degrees towards the right (see below).

Wrap in plastic film and store in the fridge for one hour, or more (48h max), then fold one last time before use, stopping at the first stage of folding (A on B and C on D – see below)…