Rough puff pastry bite plates are great anytime as appetizers when you need a sweet or savory snack, or something tasty for guest plates. These lemon tart ones (but not tart tatin) are easy baked desserts you can make…
And in one kitchen session. They can be made with no fancy tools, even though they’re a twist on a French classic puff pastry…
Vol au vent which means “fly in the wind.”
…Was someone baking and there was a swirling fly? Well, the name’s story origin is that the pastry is so light and puffy that they’d fly away with the wind.
…And hopefully straight into someone’s mouth. 😋
But with its fancy name, don’t let that fool you into thinking it’s complicated.
Because it’s as easy as dare I say premade bought phyllo sheets (that believe it or not, I’ve never used before, but I do know you have to bake them too!).
…Which btw, so easy to make your own phyllo dough for baklava.
…And easy to make your own pastry dough (that’s more forgiving than say cake or bread, so you don’t have to be fully ON and can make it before you finish your warm morning drink).
For starters, you just need 3 easy ingredients… flour, cold water, and butter.
…that will make these layers.
…And my favorite part is you don’t even have to remember to take the butter out of the freezer in advance… yep, you read me right… take it straight out of the freezer and start prepping with your flour.
You can use a pastry cutter tool or knife to cut the hard butter.
Cold butter helps against have to fight a warming pastry dough that you would possibly need to refrigerate-and-wait for more than once.
Because besides for better bake texture, it’s also easier to work with cold or chilled (as in rested in the fridge) pastry dough.
And that’ll let you chill out. I like to relax in chair pose while waiting. 😊
Since puff pastry puffs are best when cold set in the oven where it warms and steams, you can take your freezer butter out when you’re ready to start. Yay!
Wow… that was a longwinded mouthful (like the blow away wind tasty pastries 💨) way to describe why you want to use cold ingredients.
And worth the describing effort as cold vs. room temp dough is one of the the differences between a flat pastry and a puff pastry result.
I found it’s not the amount of butter, if fat or calories matter to you.
It’s a couple pats of butter (2 Tbsp) that’s all you need.
You don’t need a stick for a cup of flour, in order for the butter tastes to come through and for your rough puff pastry to do its magic in the oven.💕
So in a few ways, this type of pastry is much lighter than a cookie (that relies on butter).
And this has one additional magical ingredient… cold water. 🪄
You gotta love ingredients that are 0.00 calories and zero dollars.
And another thing I love about pastry is you don’t need to add sugar (unlike cake) for it to work.
…Or you can even make savory puffs (or both on a plate)… I’m thinking mushroom or cheese puffs. 💭 Along with dessert puffs.
But you’re only as limited as your food flavor imagination and ingredients on-hand.
Tip: If you do decide to add a runny or wet filling in the hollow part of the rough pastry puff bite, keep it mind if it’s jam or a runny sauce, it will ooze out of the pastry in the heated oven.
An option would be to bake in a little in and then add more at the end or toward the end, if you want your bites to look full or gem-stone like.
Like, I added ready-lemon curd to each blueberry rough puff pastry bite at the end.
That looks like an inviting nest or bright egg yolk.
But I added frozen (…there’s that magical word again. 🪄) blueberries for the oven. I didn’t drain them to keep them from oozing out.
Draining them and drying them still brings them to warmer temps that won’t work as well as frozen ingredients to preserve shapes.
And making this method of delightful pastry is more about discovering optimal temperatures for dough prep and oven rise, and temps for ingredients, and how they work in and out of the oven than say flavors.
…Because the refined buttery pastry tastes will be delicious with or without additional flavors. I mean… have you met a croissant you didn’t like? It’s like that. 😊
And for an optional glaze finish, I brushed whole milk instead of egg that works all around.
You can also bring out the pastry toward the end and do this step. Or omit dairy and add honey. But first you gotta bake ’em!
…And before that, now you’re ready to make them!
Rough Puff Pastry Bite - Low-Sugar
Equipment
- metal cookie cutters
- small kitchen knife and/or small kitchen palette knife
- rolling pin (baking roller)
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour (add more as needed)
- 2 Tbsp frozen or cold butter
- 3 Tbsp cold water (add more as needed)
- pinch of salt
- whole milk or egg for shine (optional(
- sweet or savory filling (such as lemon curd and blueberries, or vegetable and herb ingredients)
Instructions
- Step 1: Make the pastry dough: Add a layer of flour in a mixing bowl to start. Use fork or pastry cutter to cut/add in the frozen/cold butter in small pieces. Add remaining flour and start adding cold water. Work in ingredients together evenly by hand.
- Step 2: Make the lamination layers. This will give nice lines to the bake out of the oven. This is a dough you can work and not be shy with. and actually you'll want to roll out or use the palm of your hand to flatten out and then fold the dough into thirds (like paper or envelope folds).
- Turn the dough 90° and do the same folds (they don't have to be exact). If the dough is too wet, add back a little (bench) flour on top and bottom of dough.
- Step 3: Let rest/cool: Place pastry dough in a container with a top in the refrigerator and let rest for about 10 minutes.
- Step 4: Bring dough out and roll out ontop bench flour to about 1/4" thick. Cut out 2 of the same shapes for each bite, creating a bottom and then a top that has a hollow (window) center. Easy tip for the top: use a knife and/or small palette knife and cut out a hollow rectangle, and from there you can shape with your fingers into a more defined rectangle, or even a circle. Or use small metal piping circles. They will puff up in oven and change shape slightly.
- Step 5: Assemble the rough puff pastry top/bottom and add any filling(s) you want to bake such as frozen berries. You can add jam and curds after baked.
- Step 6: Brush pastry with whole milk or an egg wash if you want a light pastry top shine.
- Step 7: Bake at 375℉ for about 35 minutes on the lower oven rack until golden brown. If you want more of a dark and crunchy texture, bake 40-45 minutes total or until deep brown.
- Step 8: Let cool and add any additional zhugh, glazes, or sauces to your pastry.
Don’t forget to eheck out more brunch ideas or low-sugar dessert recipes.
