What Is Puff pastry and How Can I Use It?

If puff pastry has turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use it with confidence and how to choose it, cook it, store it, what to substitute, and 120 recipes to try it in.

Key Points

Laminated butter dough that steams apart into dozens of tall, crisp layers
Frozen ready-rolled sheets are the standard; all-butter brands taste best
Use for tarts, turnovers, vol-au-vents, palmiers, and wrapped savory bakes
Keep it cold and handle it little, or smeared butter kills the rise
Bake hot around 400°F (200°C); thaw in the fridge and do not refreeze

What is puff pastry?

Puff pastry is a laminated dough, just flour, water, and a great deal of butter, folded and rolled so the fat and dough build up into dozens of paper-thin layers.

In the oven, water in the butter turns to steam and forces those layers apart, so the pastry puffs into a tall, crisp, shattering sheet.

Almost no one makes it from scratch anymore. Frozen, ready-rolled puff pastry from the freezer aisle is the standard, and a good all-butter brand bakes up just as well as homemade.

That lamination is the whole trick. It is what separates puff from a soft dough like crescent rolls: more layers, more rise, a crisper and more brittle finish.

Raw puff pastry sheets

How to Use Puff Pastry

Puff is the lazy cook's pastry shortcut. Roll it out, add a filling, then bake until it looks like hours of work went into it.

Savory is its home turf. Wrap it around fish for Salmon Wellington with Dilled Hollandaise, lay it over a filling for Cheese Onion Leek & Potato Pie, or bake it into an open tart like Goat Cheese, Rosemary & Lemon Tart.

It works for small bites too. Cheese Palmiers and twisted straws come from rolling and slicing the sheet, while cut squares puff into vol-au-vent cases for Alaska Vol-Au-Vents.

For sweets, fold it around fruit for turnovers and strudels like Apple Strudel Puff Pastry, or bake plain squares for a quick base under cream and berries.

Most fillings bake at 400°F (200°C) so the high heat drives the rise before the butter melts out flat.

Working With It and Common Mistakes

Cold is everything. Work with the pastry chilled and firm, because once the butter softens, the layers smear together and the dough will not puff. If it gets warm and floppy while you shape it, chill it on the tray for 15 minutes before it goes in the oven.

Do not overwork it. Re-rolling scraps and pressing the dough flattens the layers, so you get a dense, leathery result instead of a tall one.

Handle it as little as you can and cut with a sharp knife in clean strokes, since dragging seals the cut edges and stops the sides from rising.

Brush the tops, not the cut edges, with egg wash for color; egg run down the layered sides glues them shut. A hot oven matters too: too low and the butter leaks out before the steam can lift the layers.

Substitutes

Phyllo is the closest cousin but works differently. It comes in tissue-thin sheets you brush with butter and stack, so it bakes crisp and flaky but flat, with none of puff's tall rise. Use it for strudel and baklava, not where you need height.

Crescent roll dough stands in for wraps and bakes when you want soft and quick over crisp and tall. Pie dough works for tarts and pockets when you want a sturdy, short crust rather than flaky layers.

There is no true shortcut to the puff itself; if a recipe depends on the dramatic rise, use real puff pastry.

Buying and Storing Puff Pastry

Buy it frozen, and read the label for butter. All-butter puff tastes far better than the versions made with vegetable shortening, though the butter ones soften faster as you work. Sheets are more useful than shells for most cooking.

Keep it frozen until the day before you bake, then thaw it overnight in the fridge, still wrapped. Fridge thawing keeps the butter cold and the layers intact; thawing on the counter melts the butter and ruins the lamination.

Use thawed pastry within a couple of days and do not refreeze it once it has fully thawed, since a second freeze and thaw turns it crumbly. Unbaked scraps can be stacked flat and rewrapped for a second small bake, never balled up.

Nutrition

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size 1 oz (28g)

Amount per Serving

Calories 156Calories from Fat 97

% Daily Value *

Total Fat 10.8g 17%

Saturated Fat 1.5g 8%

Trans Fat ~

Cholesterol 0mg 0%

Sodium 70mg 3%

Total Carbohydrate 12.8g 4%

Dietary Fiber 0g 2%

Sugars 0.2

Protein 2.1g

Vitamin A 0% Vitamin C 0%

Calcium 0% • Iron 4%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your caloric needs.

recipeland.com/nutrition

Quick facts

Where to find puff pastry: Puff pastry is usually found in the frozen foods section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

Food group: Puff pastry is a member of the Baked Products US Department of Agriculture nutritional food group.

In Chinese: 酥皮
British (UK) term: Puff pastry
en français: la pâte feuilletée
en español: el hojaldre

How much does puff pastry weigh?

Amount	Weight
1 ounce	28 grams
1 sheet	245 grams
1 shell	40 grams

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Recipes using puff pastry

There are 120 recipes that contain this ingredient.

List of all ingredients

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