Rough puff pastry for a tropical kitchen

Why make your own pastry?

Because the one thing every reviewer noticed about Oven Marvel was the butter. Leslie Tay picked out the aroma of real butter, not margarine, in pastry made on the premises (ieatishootipost, 2013). Bought puff pastry is often made with other fats, and even the good all-butter ones are rolled thinner and more evenly than the slightly rustic, chewy-inside pastry reviewers describe (ieatishootipost, 2009). Making your own is the only way to control both.

Where does this method come from?

From standard rough puff technique, adjusted by a lot of trial and error in a warm flat. The equal weights of flour and butter, the third-folds and the 30-minute chills follow a rough puff published by a Singapore home cook for a Eurasian chicken pie (Singapore Noodles). I removed the sugar, cut the folds to four and moved almost every rest into the fridge. None of this comes from Oven Marvel, whose recipe was never published.

How many layers does it make?

Four letter folds multiply the butter by three each time: one, three, nine, 27, 81. (The fold itself, dough folded in three like a business letter, is shown step by step in the chickenpie.net glossary.) Real rough puff has butter in flattened lumps rather than perfect sheets, so treat 81 as a ceiling. Play with the numbers here:

The lamination counter

Puff pastry rises because thin sheets of butter separate thin sheets of dough. Each fold multiplies the butter sheets. Pick a fold and a number of turns and the counter does the arithmetic.

Fold type

Letter fold (in thirds, multiplies by 3) Book fold (in quarters, multiplies by 4)

Number of turns:

4

My rough puffClassic puff

1 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 = 81 butter sheets

Butter sheets

81

Dough sheets

82

Layers in total

163

Four letter folds: the rough puff in my recreations. Real rough puff has butter in flattened lumps, not a perfect sheet, so treat this number as a ceiling.

cross-section, not to scale

Worked examples (start with one butter block wrapped in dough)

Folding	Arithmetic	Butter sheets	Total layers
Croissant dough, three letter folds	1 × 3 × 3 × 3	27	55
My rough puff, four letter folds	1 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 3	81	163
Two book folds then one letter fold	1 × 4 × 4 × 3	48	97
Classic puff pastry, six letter folds	1 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 3	729	1,459
Four book folds	1 × 4 × 4 × 4 × 4	256	513

Why dough sheets are one more than butter sheets: when you fold, the dough on the outside of one layer presses against the dough of the next and they fuse, so every butter sheet ends up with dough on both sides and nothing else. That is the same reason six letter folds are usually quoted as 729 butter layers and not 1,458.

How do I keep it cold enough?

The rules that matter most in Singapore:

• Start early or start cold. Before 9am, or with the aircon on in the kitchen.
• Chill the flour too, not just the butter. Warm flour softens butter on contact.
• Use a cold surface. A marble board or a steel tray from the fridge.
• Rest more often than the recipe says if you need to. Greasy, sticky dough is asking for the fridge.
• Chill again after shaping. The trick that professional kitchens use: a Hainanese pastry chef at M Hotel rests his shaped butter puff pies at 1 to 3 C for about two hours before baking (Hong Leong Hi-Life magazine, 2018). Thirty minutes is enough for small home pies.

There is a whole guide on laminating in Singapore heat with a troubleshooting table.

What should the dough look like at each stage?

• After mixing: shaggy, with obvious flakes and lumps of butter. It will not look like pastry yet.
• After the first two folds: a rough rectangle with marbled streaks, a few torn patches, butter visible on the surface in places.
• After four folds: smooth, pale, with fine butter streaks you can see through the surface. It should feel cool and firm, like modelling clay from the fridge.

How do I bake it?

Hot. This pastry wants 200 to 210 C at the start, so that the water in the butter flashes to steam and lifts the layers before the butter can run out. A preheated tray underneath helps the base. Specific times are in each recipe: the flagship chicken pie, the curry puff, or anything else you fancy.

Can I freeze it?

Yes. Wrap the finished block tightly and freeze for up to three months. Thaw it overnight in the fridge, never on the counter. Better still, shape and fill the pies, freeze them unbaked on a tray, then bag them; they bake beautifully from frozen with a few extra minutes.

Common problems

• Butter breaking through the surface: dust with a pinch of flour, chill 15 minutes, carry on more gently.
• Dough springing back: the gluten needs a longer rest.
• Shrinking in the oven: rested too little after rolling. Chill shaped pastry before baking.
• Butter pooling on the tray: the pastry was warm when it went into the oven, or the oven was not fully hot.