Puff Pastry

Puff pastry is one of the most refined achievements of the pastry art: a thin dough in which hundreds of the thinnest layers of dough and butter alternate. During baking, the moisture in the butter turns to steam, which pushes the layers apart, and the item rises, becoming light, airy, and crisp.

The technique of creating these layers is called lamination: a sheet of dough with butter inside is rolled out and folded many times. It is a painstaking process that demands precision and coolness, so that the butter does not melt prematurely. A great many items are baked from puff pastry — from French vol-au-vents to napoleon, strudels, pies, and turnovers (croissants, by contrast, are made from the related yeast-leavened laminated dough). Crisp, golden, and tender, it is the basis of both refined desserts and savoury snacks in cuisines around the world.