Hello everyone!I just tried to make my first homemade puff pastry…I thought it wasnt that difficult but guess what?It was…The magic of puff pastry is basically layers of fat and dough, but in order to do that you need a hard margarine, not the tube style one thats soft.Oh well…of course I tried to make it lower in fat and the margarine I used came only in a tube, but I insisted on using it since it was only 35% fat and from olive oil!!But thats because I like to make easy things hard.(and hard things impossible) Anyway, the filling is amazing so if you want to make this and you dont want to go through what I did you can just buy a vegan store-bought puff pastry.
For the filling you need :
500 gr button mushrooms
4 carrots
2 onions
3 cloves of garlic
1 vegetable stock cube
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
2 tbsp ketchup
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 1/2 cup water
2 tsp cornflour
4 serving size oven proof pots
Chop mushrooms in quarters and carrots in stir-fry style strips. Chop onion in circles-or however you want it-and crush garlic. In a big saucepan saute onions and garlic. When they become a bit soft add mushrooms, ketchup, soy sauce and nutritional yeast. Stir and saute for 2 minutes. Now add everything else besides cornflour and bring to boil. Simmer for 15 minutes and add cornflour to thicken the sauce. Once veggies are tender leave aside.
Preheat oven at 200c.Place filling inside oven proof serving size pots and cover with puff pastry dough. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until top is goden brown.
READ THE FOLLOWING ONLY IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE YOUR OWN PUFF PASTRY
Well now if you are going to make homemade puff pastry this Puff Pastry tutorial is a good source to see how its done, with pictures and everything. There are also many videos where you can see the procedure on youtube.
In general for the dough you need water and a strong white flour. You form the dough in a bread like consistency- its called detrempe.Then you need a big chunk of hard margarine. After you chill both separately for about an hour, or overnight if you can be bothered,you roll out the dough in a cross like shape, enclosing the margarine inside(the dough works as an envelope). Then you start rolling and folding, all that without letting ANY margarine getting out of the dough!!!Thats why its so hard…All that also need to be done while the dough and fat are cold, so every two foldings you need to chill it in the fridge a bit. You do 6 foldings in total, but if you are going to make this check the link I give you because its a very specific way of folding and rolling.
After reading this though I dont think you are going to make it, when its so much easier to just buy it. But if you are the baker type, you should try it. Its actually kind of fun!( I’m such a geek in the kitchen) Just you guys, don’t do the same mistake with me! Buy a HARD margarine and I bet this will be much easier to make!(if you see the videos on youtube you are like, ‘oh my god, its a piece of cake!’)
Tips:
Because my margarine was soft many times the dough opened, making holes and you could see the marg coming out. THAT IS NOT GOOD. But I invented a trick!! Dip a soft brush in water and brush the area that has holes, now sprinkle with a generous amount of flour and tap and rub lightly!! Your hole is completely covered! Now if you are using soft margarine, you should also place your puff pastry dough in the fridge to chill after every folding (usually its after every two) Also you should not use a margarine low in fat, because mine turned out a bit on the hard side!Anyway I will stop now because I feel you are losing your patience, but I hope my tips helped!Good luck!
