Puff pastry

Puff pastry (also Feuilletage ) is a multilayer Ziehteig of flour, salt and water, are incorporated by repeated rolling and beating up fat layers in the. The " pulling " of the fat gives the Ziehteig his name. The difference pastry is that no yeast is used.

During baking, the dough will loose and flaky. By baking heat the water present in the dough evaporates, expands and thereby lifts the pastry. The fat layers act as a barrier, cause the vapor and not hold it in the dough until the Teiggerüst is stable baked. The absorption ( increase in volume ) of the dough this is only due to the resulting dough in the steam, not caused by additional driving means or yeast.

Is puff pastry, depending on the natural taste of fats used, largely tasteless and is made without added sugar. This makes it ideal for both sweet and savory pastries.

Species

A distinction puff by the manner in which the fat is incorporated:

• German pastry: the fat layers are inside, the basic dough surrounds him (contains according to the guidelines for fine bakery wares of the German Food Code, at least 62 kg of butter, milk fat products or margarine or practically anhydrous fats, based on 100 kilograms of grain products )
• French pastry: the fat layers enclose the base dough ( is rarely used, advantage: because the fat is on the outside, the dough does not dry out or become encrusted )
• Dutch Puff pastry: the fat is only cubic ( cool ) worked into the dough without a break touriert (hence: Blitz puff pastry called ) and processed mainly to puff soils, as it rises not so good ( pulling ).

The finished pastry may not taste like fat. Puff pastry should be crisp and splinter and can therefore not be cut after baking. Therefore, they are divided into portions prior to baking. Dutch Puff pastry takes its compact structure has a special position, because the pastry can be cut after baking. Due to this compactness, the doughs are for special pastries, such as Prasselkuchen, cake bases, cake ceilings, well suited.

The difference between puff pastry and other baked goods such as pastries or tourierten also croissants lies mainly in the dough. The puff pastry is added no yeast, in the Plunder yeast as a leavening is additionally used. Also containing doughs, according to need and recipe, sugar, milk and other ingredients. The spread in the Turkish, Greek and Arabic cuisine also tourierte Yufka, Fyllo or Masoukateig is very similar to puff pastry. There are also known variants of oil or yeast.

Production

Puff pastry is produced commercially today almost exclusively by machine. The millimeter-precise adjustment of the rolls of dough sheeters is crucial for the uniformity of the subsequent product. With a rolling pin ( Austrian rolling pin ) it requires a lot of energy and time required to achieve the same result.

Mix

In the very strong wheat dough made ​​from wheat flour, water and salt with an absorption rate of 150 a layer is affected, with some flour mixed butter or margarine taken. In trade and industry specific, hydrogenated vegetable drawing grease is used. Some bakers give the dough with a few drops of vinegar in order to weaken the gluten structure of wheat and roll out the dough easily.

Cool

The processing must take place at lower ambient temperatures, and between the coasting of the dough needs to be cooled since otherwise the grease will soften and bond the layers. Thus, the preparation may take several hours.

Tourieren

The layer-wise incorporation of fat in the dough is called Tourieren. Bakers and Confectioners speak of simple and double tours tours. In a simple tour the finished embarked dough sheet is folded three times. In a dual tour the baker folds the plate in four layers. In technical terms, this is described as " pulling ".

Similar to the manufacture of Damascus steel this composite layer is elongated and folded several times in the following. The tensile direction in the rolling ( rolling) is each time rotated by 90 ° so that the dough is evenly loaded and does not tear.

A puff usually gets two easy trails and two double tours. In the end, it consists of 3 x 3 x 4 x 4 = 144 layers of fat and dough layers 288 of which are located inside the pairs to form one - so there remain 145 (143 internal double layers plus the two outer layers ). The often- held belief that puff consisted of over a thousand layers, probably comes from the French term for pastry " mille feuilles " ( thousand leaves). The classic preparation with six simple tours but has already 730 sheets of dough.

It should be noted here is still: the type and the amount of tours depends on the ratio Dough: fat. Example ( 1000 g dough ):

• 200 g of fat = 9 = 2 simple layers of dough
• 300 g of fat = 1 simple 1 double = 12 layers of dough
• 900 g of fat = 3 simple 1 double = 108 layers of dough

Products

Baked goods made from puff pastry are among the fine baked goods.

It serves as a basis for

• Apple pies, nut Squirrel
• Pastry
• Strudel
• Vol- au-vents
• Fleurons as a side dish or garnish for soups and stews
• Baklava
• Cheese Biscuits
• Baniza in Bulgaria, with brine cheese filling
• Pig ear (pastry )
• Sfogliatelle

History

Cultural historians are mostly in agreement that the principle of puff pastry production originates from the Mediterranean, was probably made known in the cultural area of the later Ottoman Empire, and from participants of the Crusades in Central Europe. Whether it already existed in ancient Egypt pastries of multi-layered dough is unclear. The international term for Filo paper-thin dough sheets is of Greek origin, however, the production 's more back to the Ottomans. In the 11th century contains a Turkish dictionary the term yufka for a cake that consisted of multi-folded dough sheet. It probably developed baklava. Over time, the dough layers were thinner. The paper-thin pastry is believed to have originated in the royal kitchen of the Ottoman Sultan in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The Janissaries were given every year in Ramadan Baklava Palace as a gift. The march back to the barracks was called Baklava Procession.

Since the time of the Crusades puff is also mentioned sporadically in Europe, for example in 1311 in an open letter to the Bishop of Amiens. Around this time, are said to have eaten in Cluny the pastry already regularly the monks of the Benedictine Abbey. The Council of Venice issued in 1525 a ban on certain luxury food at weddings and other family celebrations, including for puff pastry. In the 16th century, recipes appear in European cookbooks. Marx Rumpolt are 1581 instructions for a multi-layered " butter pastry ", whereby the individual layers " like a veil " should be wafer-thin. The Brandenburg Hofmediziner Johann Sigismund Elsholtz mentioned in 1682 a " Bletterkuchen ". Also, the term " tour " for the dough was already common. Carême is to have the puff pastry perfected at the end of the 18th century in France. The Schweineöhrchen to have been invented in 1848 at the Café Frascati in Paris.

Puff pastry is also found in the section on Naples in Goethe's Italian Journey mention with a note on the digestibility of this food.