I've been making mille feuille and trying to caramelize my puff pastry. The method I use is to sprinkle superfine under my puff pastry sheet, bake for 8 minutes at 190 celsius. Then take the pastry out flatten it with a cookie sheet and return for another 8 minutes and finally flip the pastry and coat the bottom with more superfine and bake another 8 min. The product I end up with is a puff pastry that's coated with crunchy caramel on both sides, brown on the edges and just cooked in the center. My question is how can I get a product that actually looks like a proper caramelized puff pastry ( a golden brown colour throughout).
you have to laminate the dough with sugar. I.e. sprinkle with confectioners sugar, fold it and roll it back out into its original size and repeat. "Arlette pastry" is the technical term. What is this for? -You may be able to get away with one of my "cheats" Line up some sheets of phyllo dough brush with clarified butter and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Repeat several times until you have 1/4 in thickness. Place something flat and heavy on top like a sheet pan and bake until golden. Cut into desired sizes with a serrated knife, because its very delicate stuff!
I'm trying to make mille feuille and I'm aiming for 1/4" thickness. I think an arlette is exactly what I was thinking of. I guess my next question asides from getting proper caramelization is how to achieve a uniform colour. Should I be weighing the pastry down with a cookie sheet the entire time its baking or just flatten it the way I've mentioned in my first post? Another question that I just thought of; I made 3 lbs of puff pastry and I rolled it out before freezing it, how can I incorporate the confectioners into the dough? Would it be enough just to lightly roll it out a bit with confectioners before using it?
I'll definitely try 200-205c, I noticed that I didn't quite get the brown caramel colour I was looking for, more like a brown yellow right now.
incorporate it in during the folding process. Seal your butter in and roll it out, sprinkle the surface generously with sugar, fold over roll out and repeat however many times you usually do. Weigh it down the entire time, the heat transfer from the metal sheet, will caramelize the sugar better.
For mille feuille we actually don't start out by coating the puff dough at all. We dock the sheet well, put it between 2 very flat pans and bake 20-25 minutes until it is evenly golden all the way though. THEN we sprinkle the hot dough with superfine sugar and return it to the hot oven just until the sugar caramelizes 2 - 3 minutes. The end result has a caramel glaze and is crisp and flaky all the way through.
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