Rough puff. It’s a thing among home bakers–a shortcut to glorious puff pastry.
What’s the big deal about puff pastry? The magic of puff pastry (and rough puff) is the moisture in the generous amount of butter that is incorporated into the dough. As the pastry bakes, the butter melts and forms steam. In a successful bake, the steam is strong enough to lift and separate the layers of the dough. Voila! You have a flaky, buttery, delightful pastry.
I gave puff pastry the old college try. I took a puff pastry class (croissants, etc.) at The Sur La Table Cooking School. It was a challenging class and I ended up repeating it, hoping that I could master that skill. But, alas, those big rectangular blocks of cold cold cold butter folded between layers of delicate pastry dough got the better of me. You kind of had to be chained to the refrigerator to keep the butter cold enough as you folded it. Even the heat of your hands was an issue. And, you folded and folded and folded…and folded. Whew!
Then I heard about rough puff–a lot less folding, butter added in big chunks rather than sheets, and, while not an absolute match for puff pastry, it is a tasty and flaky substitute.
So, this week, when one-time pastry chef at Alice Waters’ legendary Chez Panisse Restaurant and now a Paris-based blogger and cookbook author David Lebovitz, featured a rough puff Apple Tart with great photographs of the process, I paid attention (and baked Apple Tarts).
Here is the link to his blog, the great Apple Tart recipe and those how-to photographs: Apple Tart and Rough Puff. His cookbooks are available on Amazon and at your local bookstore.
