Puff, the Magic Pastry
After all these years of cooking and baking, I had never before tried puff pastry. It always seemed too complicated to make from scratch and for some reason I just never tried the packaged kind.I am a convert of the packaged kind.
Having discovered a recipe for an easy rustic pear tart in Sunset magazine last month and having one last lovely fresh pear from Casa Rancho in the fridge, I thought I'd finally break down and try puff pastry from the freezer case.
Sadly, my sentimental favorite, Pepperidge Farm, has gone to using (ick) margarine in their puff pastry so instead I plumped for DuFour brand, new to me but made with real butter. I rolled it out, lined up lovely pear slices on it, brushed with melted Meyer lemon marmalade (the original recipe called for orange marmalade), brushed the edges with egg wash, sprinkled it with just a little turbinado sugar, popped it in the oven and, alakazam! - a beautiful pear tart. Drizzled with creme fraiche.
And forgot to photograph it before it vanished into thin air - presto!
What's a blogger to do? Of course, I made another the very next day, this time with mixed fruits - the last Gravenstein apple from Chilebrown, a nice ripe nectarine and some strawberries - and this one was just as delicious as the all-pear version.
Puff pastry is kitchen magic and I'm a newly initiated wizard.
Labels: fruit, puff pastry
posted by Zoomie at
5:44 AM
9 Comments:
Great headline!
I myself tried packaged puff pastry for the first time just last year. It works!
wow the fruit looks so delicious. I will have to make that asap before fruit gets expensive at the store.
btw, how much do you LOVE puff pastry now that you use store bought?! so easy!
I can bring you a Bhut Jolokia to Marin tomorrow morning if you wnat. It was not as hot as we expected. It is still a burner.
Cookiecrumb, thanks, I was kinda pleased with it.
Lovely, I love it a lot!
Chilebrown, you are much braver than I in the chili department. Save them for those who can truly enjoy them! :-)
I used packaged puff pastry for the first time this summer too! Alas the only kind they had was Pepperidge Farm. I keep looking for the good stuff.
Drool drool drool. An excellent substitute for puff paste is filo dough. I use that instead of puff paste for a lot of things - from an open-faced vegetable tart to a kind of fruit strudel where you wrap the fruit inside on of the filo leaves, brush with butter and bake. Yummy!
Mrs. I, I really liked the Du Four brand and it was side-by-side with the Pepperidge Farm but in a quieter package, just white.
Nancy, do you get phyllo frozen, as the puff pastry?
Yes, Filo dough comes frozen - I don't know any place that sells it fresh. In fact, I wouldn't want to work with fresh dough as it's so very delicate. I lay the pastry down on a baking sheet while it's still frozen and then, brush butter on it as it thaws. It's so very thin that it thaws in no time at all.
Nancy, interesting! I will look for it next time!
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