Puffs: recipes and cooking tips

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

The recipe for puffs will appeal to many sweet lovers, and not only. After all, there are many options for hearty products, when cheese, sausages or meat are placed as a filling in small puff pastry buns. The puffs themselves are divided into several types. For example, they can be open and closed, the dough for them can be both yeast and yeast-free. The main difference is that in closed puffs, the filling is placed between layers of dough or simply wrapped in dough. If you are preparing an open puff, then the dough is cut into triangles or squares, and fruits, cheese, berries or slices of smoked meats are laid out on top.

How to cook

The puff recipe is considered universal, so it is suitable for both soft and hearty varieties of this dish. Many people prefer to cook them at home, it's really easy, especially if you get enough stuff over time.

It should be noted that their main secret lies not in the filling, but in the dough. So it's not so importantwhat exactly you put in it is much more important how you prepare the puff pastry itself. It is primarily distinguished by the fact that it uses a large amount of butter.

How to make dough?

The cooking process is as follows. Yeast or unleavened dough must be covered with oil, and then roll out the resulting sandwich several times so that a layered structure is obtained as a result. The puff turns out the more magnificent, the more layers you prepare. When the oil begins to evaporate in the oven, the layers separate from each other, a layer of air appears between them. So, in order for the puff to turn out beautiful and tasty, you need to roll out the dough as thinly as possible, while carefully making sure that it does not tear anywhere. To do this, they put it in the refrigerator from time to time.

Then the formed puffs are filled with stuffing and baked in the oven. If the dough was yeast, then the pastries will turn out more tender and soft, and if you decide to use unleavened dough, then fragile and crispy.

It is worth noting that the preparation of a puff is a complex, one might say, a creative process, having mastered it, you will overcome another stage of culinary creativity.

Baking toppings

Fillings for puffs can be very diverse. These are pieces of chocolate, and boiled condensed milk, and canned or fresh fruits, and jam, and cottage cheese, and dried fruits, and jam, and jam, and even marmalade.

Remember that if you use liquid jam, then it should be thickened withcorn starch. In this case, the filling will not leak out during baking.

For aroma and unique taste, orange or lemon peel, sesame seeds, spices, poppy seeds are often added to the filling. Sweet puffs are considered a universal dessert or a complete snack along with coffee and tea.

Hearty toppings

Puff pastries with savory, so-called hearty fillings, as a rule, are served with first courses, they can act as an alternative to bread.

Among the savory toppings, ham, cheese, eggs, vegetables, mushrooms, meat and potatoes are the leaders. Sometimes chefs manage to come up with original combinations. For example, eggs with onions, chicken with ham, cheese with spinach, meat with mushrooms, seafood with cream cheese.

The secret to making delicious pastries

The puff recipe contains many nuances, only by implementing which you will get a really tasty product. According to the classic recipe, a puff should contain about three hundred layers of unleavened dough and 24 to 96 layers of yeast dough. Of course, at home to achieve this is almost impossible. So modern housewives use simpler recipes.

To make delicious puff pastry, always take flour with a high gluten content. It includes varieties "Krupchatka", "Extra", first and highest grades. It is desirable to sift it beforehand. Use cold water, not ice cold. You can partially use milk, but then the doughrisks losing its elasticity. It is important to put enough s alt, if it is not enough, the puff with the filling will begin to blur. To make sure this doesn't happen, you can use lemon juice or vinegar.

Butter or margarine?

Many are arguing hard on what to cook puffs with filling - in butter or margarine. There is no single answer, it's all about personal preference.

Butter might make puffs tastier, but baking margarine now has such a high melting point that you can make a delicious fluffy puff with it too. The only thing is, stop using the spread.

Before you begin to prepare the puff, cool the dough a little, but do not freeze. To enhance the taste, you can add an egg or a few drops of cognac.

Jam filling

In order to prepare a puff with jam, we need:

• two sheets of puff pastry;
• 20 grams of semolina;
• 30 grams of potato starch;
• one glass of orange jam.

Defrost the dough, it is better to work with each sheet separately. Roll it out not too thin, and if the dough starts to stick to the rolling pin, dust it with flour.

Cut the dough into squares about 10 by 10 centimeters. Pour a little starch into the very center and put a full spoonful of jam with a slide. Lift the left side and connect with the right side of the dough. Thus, you will connect the bottom, top and rightside. Make small slits with a knife to keep the dough from puffing up.

Put the puffs with jam on a baking sheet, bake in a preheated oven at 190 degrees for half an hour. To make them a delicious ruddy color, they can be smeared with yolk.

Ham filling

To make delicious ham puffs, use the following ingredients:

• 500 grams of puff pastry;
• 400 grams of ham;
• 250 grams of hard cheese;
• two chicken eggs;
• a bunch of green onions;
• sunflower oil.

Cut the ham into strips, and grate the cheese on a coarse grater. Finely chop the onion. To make it easier, you can prepare puffs from ready-made dough. Mix ham, onion, cheese and one egg together. Beat the second egg with a fork. Roll out the dough thinly and cut into small rectangles, about 6 by 12 centimeters.

Spread a tablespoon of filling on one half of each triangle, and press the other half with a fork. Lay the ham puffs on a baking sheet previously greased with vegetable oil. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes at 180 degrees.

Curd component

Cheese puff is a delicate and sweet dessert that can be compared to homemade cakes. For this recipe we need:

• 500 grams of yeast-free puff pastry;
• one chicken egg;
• 500 grams of curd mass (it can be with candied fruit orraisins);
• wheat flour;
• two tablespoons of vegetable oil.

When you make yeast-free puffs, pay special attention to the dough. The packaging must be intact, and the expiration date must be appropriate. The dough should be in the form of a plate or roll without kinks or bumps, which indicates that it was thawed during transportation, which means it is not very fresh.

After opening the package, defrost it according to the instructions. As a rule, for this it is recommended to leave it for a while at room temperature. Remember that it cannot be refrozen, so take only as much as you need.

Crack an egg into a small bowl and beat until light foam forms. Sprinkle a dry surface of the countertop with a small amount of flour, roll out a layer of dough, making it as thin as possible. Use a knife to cut it into small rectangles of any size. Inside each such envelope, put a little curd mass in the very center, and brush the edges with a beaten egg.

Fold the dough, pulling one of the corners to the opposite so that you get a neat triangle. Press the edges with your fingers, and then go over them with the cloves of a fork or the flat side of a knife.

Preheat the oven for puff pastry with cottage cheese to 170 degrees. Grease a baking sheet with vegetable oil, put puffs on it at some distance from each other so that they do not stick together. Top them with an egg, and make a few neat punctures with toothpicks. Immediately after that, send it to the ovenat least a quarter of an hour.

Ready-made puffs according to the recipe above should be covered with a delicious golden crust and rise a little. Once this has happened, you can take them out of the oven.

Apple puffs

Puffs, cooked at home according to this recipe, will please your loved ones during Sunday breakfast, will be an original dessert for dinner. For cooking we need:

• 500 grams of yeast-free dough;
• one chicken egg;
• four apples;
• 50 grams of sugar;
• 30 grams of butter;
• cinnamon - to taste.

To make apple puffs, start by dicing thoroughly washed ripe apples. Melt a small piece of butter in a frying pan and put the apple slices there. Sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar. Apples must be stewed until they become soft.

In parallel, you should start preparing the dough for puffs. To do this, defrost it at room temperature and roll it out a little on a countertop lightly sprinkled with flour.

Cut the dough into neat rectangles, start spreading the filling on the back side. Put as much as you like, because the more, the merrier. But do not overdo it so that you can easily pinch the edges of each puff.

Put the blinded envelopes on a baking sheet, and brush them with yolk on top so that they are sure to brown and a crust forms. The puffs according to this recipe are baked in the oven at a temperature of 220 degrees, untilthat ruddy crust will finally not appear.

Sweet puff

Cheese puffs can be attributed to hearty ones. To prepare them, take:

• 500 grams of puff pastry (it can be either yeast or yeast-free, it all depends on what kind of pastry you like more - fluffy or crispy);
• 200 grams of hard cheese (if desired, you can take 100 grams of hard cheese and 100 grams of feta cheese, then you get a puff similar to khachapuri);
• one chicken egg;
• sesame, garlic and other spices are optional.

Preheat the oven for cheese puff to 200 degrees. Defrost the dough, and grate the cheese on a coarse grater. Crushed garlic, if desired, can be added to the cheese at this stage, this will give the puffs an original point.

Roll out the dough no more than three millimeters thick and cut into approximately equal layers. In the center of each of them, start spreading the filling.

Beat the egg in a separate cup and circle the edges of the puffs with this mixture so that they stick together better. After that, fold them in the form of squares or triangles, pinching the edges with a fork. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sesame seeds for beauty. Puffs are cooked in the oven for 20 minutes.

Original pastries with cherries

To make these puffs, you only need very few ingredients. You will need to take:

• 500 grams puff yeast dough;
• half a glass of sugar;
• two tablespoons of starch;
• 300 grams of cherries.

Firstpreparing the filling for puff pastry with cherries. We spread the berries in a separate bowl, removing the seeds. Pour starch and sugar there. Mix thoroughly.

Defrost the dough, roll it out and cut into equal squares. On each we make cuts with a knife on the half that will be the top of the puff. Put the cherry filling on the second half.

We fasten the opposite ends of the dough so that we get triangular puffs. Grease the edges with a beaten egg.

Put the puffs on a baking sheet and put in the oven at 180 degrees for 40 minutes. After they are browned, they can be taken out.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.