Monday, May 10, 2010

Cheese Sticks


Pâte feuilletée, which means pastry with many leaves, is one of the most elusive doughs you can make. With only three key ingredients, it remains a difficult dough and one I have yet to master.


Without using yeast, this magical dough rises through the use of layers and the steam from the butter. The water trapped in the butter causes the steam and pushes the layers apart.

The formula for puff pastry:
400 g flour + 200 g water (half the flour) + 300 g butter (flour + water divided by 2) + salt (optional)
Puff pastry's number one enemy is heat. Working quickly, and never doing more than two turns at a time, you must keep the butter cool enough so that it doesn't leak out during rolling.

Recipe

400 g flour
200 g water
6 g salt
300 g butter
100 g Gruyère cheese


You can find the recipe for Allumettes au fromage (Puff pastry strips with cheese) here along with more background information. It was part of Week 2 at Le Cordon Bleu in Basic Cuisine.


Links
Video (in French but shows the technique) 
Eggbeater's Puff Pastry 
Foodbeam's Puff Pastry
50 Flaky, Crunchy, Delicious Appetizers, Entrées

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    10 comments:

    faithy said...

    Looks inviting! i love cheese sticks! looks easy to make too!

    Lori said...

    These look delicious! It sounds like quite the skill to master. I haven't worked with homemade puff pastry before. I have plans to eventually and it sounds like I should prepare myself for an adventure and perhaps a few (or a lot of) tries before I get it right. :)

    Holly Bruns said...

    Oh my, those do look good. You've inspired me to try homemade puff pastry. I love your blog. What a great idea: to work your way through the Cordon Bleu curriculum.

    Unknown said...

    Ottimi da mangiare da soli o con un buon aperitivo!
    mi piace la sfoglia, una ricetta da provare :P

    Eliana said...

    It looks amazing and worth the effort.

    Katrina said...

    Those look so good. I have a new love for Gruyere cheese. (I've always just been a cheddar or parmesan gal.) ;)

    Manggy said...

    It's definitely a distant dream for me :( especially now the temps have hit 37C!!

    FOODESSA said...

    Hello again Shari.
    I confess to never having tried to make my own puff pastry dough. I kind of left that to others. But, who knows...I may just dive into this challenge one day soon.
    I can never turn down a tasty cheesestick ;o)
    Thanks for sharing, Claudia

    Coffee and Vanilla said...

    What a great recipe, who does not love cheese sticks?? :)

    I love the new blog look as well, very nice!

    Di said...

    Those look _so_ good! I really need to make puff pastry again so I can try these. Mmm.