"Learn How to Make Puff Pastry:

After three batches of puff pastry I am happy to say that my New Years Resolution for this year should probably change to "Learn How to Make Puff Pastry." Gallet des rois is on hold until next January! Next January get excited for the most bangin' gallet des rois this side of 495!!!! 

For now we can all just be very excited that it finally puffed! Not evenly, probably not as much as it could have as I could probably have left it in the oven much longer, and now I don't know exactly what to do with it aside from bring it to a girls night tomorrow completely naked! BUT IT PUFFED! I dedicate this puff pastry to the end of my Christmas break from school...soon there will be fewer posts...and my food may become ugly...early warning...

Also, get excited- you're about to see me flip out with excitement because IT PUFFED!!!

Batch #2- Cold butter, bad news, I put it in the oven anyways and unabashedly ate it coated in cinnamon and sugar...AND we didn't go to the gym...HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

I did this to make myself feel better about batch #2...that orchid in the back is dead...

Batch #3!!!! Look how smooth!!! I think this is my best "rolling" experience ever...I don't like rolling and have many times just taken pie dough and pressed it into the pan to avoid having to roll it...You've done it too...

Right from the oven! It puffed!!! 

A close up of the beautiful puffiness! 

 The inside!! Look at the layers!!!! Fold, fold, fold! Again, could probably have puffed more- see that thicker layer in the middle?

Look how crispy! 

I suggest that everyone at some point in their lives make an attempt at making their own! It is so exciting when it works!!

It WORKED!! Kind of...

When I started out on this great puff pastry making adventure (and trust me it is an adventure) I did not expect it work out. I've tried in the past to make gluten free croissants and had a melt-down after hours of rolling and folding baked into one big epic fail. So I started out this project not expecting much and following the advice posted here... after the first roll I was DANCING I was so excited! Cup4Cup flour is actually really good and works great!

However, after all of the rolling and folding and rolling and folding- which is actually kind of therapeutic and nice- my puff pastry didn't really puff! It looks more like this...

It's flat...very flat...

It's not hard at all- it's a little crispy, it tastes really nice especially with blueberry pie filling or lemon curd on it...but it's flat. 

I brought some down to Gram as usual (I wonder when she will be sick of eating my experiments). She did some looking around and we concluded that the problem was that I had used margarine instead of butter. I often do this with baking because in addition to a wheat allergy in my family we also have a number of people who are allergic to milk. Usually it's fine. Apparently not. Lesson to everyone do NOT put margarine in puff pastry. It has too high a water content and will not produce the right amount of steam to make your puff, PUFF. Also, You need to be really careful with your egg wash, if it gets on the edges of the puff it will seal them and keep the steam from being released. This again will make it so that your puff cannot PUFF! Finally, the oven may have been too hot. My oven is part oven and part heater so the heater may have applied a bit too much extra heat in this case making everything brown much too quickly.

It still tasted ok and was better than any gluten free pie crust I have ever had so I used it on chicken pot pie today and was very pleased with the results.

I made an extra thick version of my grandmother's chicken slop, slopped it into some nice little ramekins, and then covered it with a sheet of my pastry dough rolled out thinly. The result was kind of like a nice soft and flaky pie crust. 

Turkey Pot Pie

Lemon Turn Over

Lemon Turn Over

I'll try again later with butter this time...first I need to clean the kitchen...

New Year, New Flour

There is nothing like New Years day. Scores of people are rushing to make and keep resolutions- new exercise programs, juice fasts, budgeting, and bettering themselves. Facebook is loaded with wishes, thank you's, and engagement photos. Everyone is ready to start fresh. I'm just like everyone else. I make resolutions and rarely keep them- I'll journal more, juice more vegetables, watch less TV and so on. But really when it comes down to it I hate to journal, I don't like cleaning the juicer, and Modern Family is on for hours every night...Instead, I think I'll do the same things just with more vigor.

In preparation for the French La Fête des Roisis (Three Kings Day)- a small holiday that celebrates the three kings who brought gifts to Jesus after his birth- I am working on some puff pastry so that I can make a galette des rois (king's cake).  Now I am not very French, nor am I very religious, but I can't help but love la galette des rois. This is a cake made of a puff pastry shell and filled with sweet almond paste. Being a person who needs to eat gluten free I am very nervous about this puff pastry thing- I found a great recipe here, and bought this new flour. We'll see.....

Maybe my New Years resolution should include something about patience and using nicer words when I mess things up in the kitchen....