Flaky Pastry
How to make a quick and easy flaky pastry. Delicious, light, crispy pastry, great for making pies, strudels and turnovers.
Making pastry can be daunting and overwhelming if you haven’t made it before. However, once you have made this pastry it is very unlikely you’ll want to buy pastry from the supermarket in the future. It’s also cheaper to make and you know exactly what ingredients you’re putting into it.
The sign of good flaky pastry dough is lamination. Repeatedly rolling and folding the dough with butter, results in paper-thin layers. It is these thin layers of butter between the layers of dough that make the pastry light and crispy. Perfect for making delicious desserts or savoury pies that are sure to impress family and friends. Try my Apricot semolina galette or these Apple rose tartlets.
This recipe will make (600g) enough for 2 large galettes or pies and it’s freezer friendly.
Also check out the substitutions section on this page on how to adapt the recipe to make it vegan.
If you decide to give this recipe a try, let me know! Leave a comment below and rate it – it’s really helpful to me and other readers knowing what you think! And don’t forget to take a picture and tag me @thegourmetlarder or hashtag it #thegourmetlarder on Instagram or Facebook. I love seeing what you’ve been baking! 🙂
RECIPE HIGHLIGHTS
- EASE: Easy.
- GREAST FOR: Great for making pies, galettes, turnovers and anything that uses puff pastry.
- TASTE: Rich butter layers.
- TEXTURE: Crisp and flaky all the way through.
- QUANTITY: 600g
- TIME: 1 hour 5 minutes
INGREDIENTS
For this flaky pastry recipe all you need are these ingredients:
- Plain or all-purpose flour – creates the structure and flexibility of the dough.
- Caster or granulated white sugar – adds sweetness.
- Butter – adds structure and flavour. I use salted butter for most of my baking as it intensifies the flavours, but feel free to use unsalted if you prefer.
- Buttermilk or water – If you want to add a little bit more flavour to this recipe try adding buttermilk instead of water.
TIP: I highly recommend adding salt to your doughs and pastry. Salt helps balance out the sweetness and richness. It also elevates the other ingredients, bring out the best characteristics of any recipe. I recommend Maldon Sea salt flakes or Cornish sea salt.
WHAT VARIATIONS CAN I MAKE?
- Crispier pastry – can be achieved by replacing half of the butter with lard.
If you experiment, Please leave a comment at the bottom of the post – it’s really helpful to me and other readers knowing how you got on and I regularly update these posts and the feedback I receive helps to make the recipes even more useful.
NUTRITION
Serving: 100g of flaky pastry.
Nutrition information can vary for a recipe based on factors such as precision of measurements, brands, ingredient freshness, or the source of nutrition data.
I strive to keep the information as accurate as possible but make no warranties regarding its accuracy.
I encourage you to make your own calculations based on the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
STORAGE AND FREEZING
It keeps in the fridge for 4-5 days, wrap it in cling film to prevent it from drying out or absorbing other odours from your fridge.
Freezing: This pastry can be frozen for up to 3 months, as a block or rolled into a sheet for easy use.
EQUIPMENT SUGGESTIONS
Recommendations include:
I like the sturdiness of this bowl and its 4 litre capacity means I can use it for mixing just about everything in the kitchen. It is also microwave, freezer and dishwasher safe.
These different size mixing bowls are really useful depending on the amount of food you are preparing. They also have airtight lids that fit snugly to seal and keep food fresh, great for using as dry storage bowls with lids. The plastic lid of the largest bowl has a removable centre, where one of 3 graters can be used for grating cheese or vegetables.
I do own a plastic mixing bowl but I am personally not a big fan of them. These 3 bowls are on the smaller size but good for the odd cake making.
I love this rolling pin, its variable guide rings make rolling out biscuit doughs, pizzas, or flat breads so much easier!
These measuring spoons are really handy for getting the right measurements of those small ingredients. I also like the fact that they are magnetic, sticking together and narrow to fit into spice jars.
Please check out my Shop for a curated collection of some of my favourite baking equipment. The Gourmet Larder is an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
TIP: I highly recommend using metric measurements and a digital kitchen scale, rather than cup measurements. If you have ever ended up with dry, dense or crumbly baked goods, it might be because of inaccurate volume measurements, not all measuring cups are made equally. All my recipes on this blog are carefully developed so that you can easily recreate them in your own kitchen with success, using metric measurements. It is also a lot easier, less messy and you will get far better, consistent results. 🙂
If you are interested in understanding conversions, here you will find the best conversion chart.
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RECIPE TIPS
Chilling – is important to ensure the dough does not split during the rolling phase.
Use soft butter – at room temperature so that it will spread nicely between the dough layers. If the butter is to cold and hard it can rip the dough and equally if it is too hot.
To avoid the dough spliting – especially during summer days when it is particularly hot, the dough can get too warm. Place the dough in the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.
Flaky Pastry
INGREDIENTS LIST
- 280 g plain flour (all-purpose)
- 1 pinch fine sea salt
- 2 tbsp caster sugar (for sweet pastry items)
- 200 g butter (at room temperature)
- 125 ml water or buttermilk (see notes)
Preparation
- Weigh out the butter and divide it into 4 equal amounts, or if you have a 200g block then it's easy to divide into 4 approximately.
- In a medium bowl, add the flour, salt, sugar (omit for savoury pies) and one portion of the butter.
- Add the water or buttermilk (see notes) and bring the mix to form a soft dough. Form a ball and then flatten it and wrap it in cling film, place it in the fridge for 20 minutes to chill. (This is important for the flour to have time to properly absorb the water content and for the dough to relax, making it easier to roll.)
- Lightly flour the work surface, then roll the dough out to make a rectangle approximately 3-4mm thick.
- Take another portion of butter and dot it or spread it evenly over two-thirds of the rectangle. (The butter should be at room temperature and soft, but not melted.)
- Fold 1/3 of the dough without any butter, over the middle 1/3 of the dough with butter.
- Then fold over the other 1/3 of the dough with butter, over the top. This completes one rollout.
- Turn the dough 90 degrees and repeat steps 4 – 7 two more times with the remaining butter.If it’s summer and it is a particularly hot day, the dough might warm up and soften too much. Don’t worry if this happens, just put it in the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes to firm up.
- Finally, once all the rolls have been completed, cover with cling film again and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes before using.
- The flaky pastry dough is now ready to use for making delicious pies and desserts.
Notes & Tips
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