Easy Sourdough Puff Pastry
This easy sourdough puff pastry is perfect for use in any recipe that calls for puff pastry. Made with sourdough, it’s healthier than store-bought puff pastry with fewer ingredients and no preservatives. I like to make this sourdough puff pastry recipe weekly and use it in different things throughout the week. Some of my favorite things to make with this puff pastry are cream cheese danishes, upside down pizza, savory pot pies, appetizers, and pie crust.
Puff pastry is just an enriched dough typically made with yeast and layered with butter. When the dough bakes, the butter releases steam and puffs up the dough in many different flaky layers that are delicious. The process of layering the dough with butter is called lamination. Laminating dough can be a long and difficult process, but in this recipe, I’m showing you a simpler way to laminate dough, so making this on a weekly basis is more doable.
Instead of making a specific-sized butter block out of butter and parchment paper, you can just spread room-temperature butter on the dough, and then place it in the freezer for a few minutes in between each fold of the dough (lamination), instead of putting it in the refrigerator for several hours between each lamination. This makes it simple and easy to make puff pastry, and once you make it once or twice you’ll realize just how easy it is.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Simple – using my simple lamination method, this puff pastry is simple and easy to make and have available in the refrigerator for any recipe you might want to make throughout the week.
- Make-ahead recipe – this puff pastry keeps in the refrigerator for several days, so it’s easy to have made up ahead of time
- Lots of uses – there are so many uses for this incredible dough! Pie crust, hand pies, puff pastry Christmas tree, stromboli, calzones, danishes, or as a topping for almost any kind of casserole. You can make any kind of recipe that calls for a simple dough, and take it up a notch by using puff pastry.
- Healthy – any dough made with the wild yeast in sourdough will be much healthier than dough made with regular yeast. This is due in part to the long fermentation process that happens when you allow the sourdough to reduce the gluten and phytic acid that is present in the flour that has been added to the recipe. This long fermentation process happens naturally when making puff pastry because of the time the dough has to sit while being laminated. In short, it’s much healthier than traditional puff pastry dough.
Understanding The Basic Process
I think it’s helpful to have a bird’s eye view of the basic process you’re going to follow to make this sourdough puff pastry dough.
1. Mix up the dough in either a mixer or by hand in a bowl. If not using a mixer, just do a series of stretch and folds on the dough over a few hours to develop the gluten in the dough.
2. Allow the dough to bulk ferment for a few hours or overnight at room temperature.
3. Roll out the dough on parchment paper and chill it in the freezer for about 10 minutes
Laminate The Dough
4. Take the dough out of the freezer and spread room temperature butter on the dough
5. Do the first letter fold by folding the short side of the dough 1/3 of the way across, and the other part of the dough 1/3 of the way across towards the middle (like you would a letter). This will put the butter in the middle of the dough.
6. Chill the dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes. At this point the butter and the dough will be about the same temperature.
7. Take the dough out of the freezer, and roll it out again using the rolling pin.
8. Do the second letter fold, which makes more layers of butter and dough.
9. Put it back in the freezer for 10 minutes
10. Take it out of the freezer, do the third letter fold and roll it out again.
11. Wrap in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake with it.
It sounds like a lot of steps, but it really isn’t, and using the freezer makes it so you can get it laminated in just a few minutes instead of having to put it in the refrigerator for two hours between each lamination.
Ingredients
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Favorite Sourdough Recipes:
How to Make Sourdough Puff Pastry
Combine all ingredients in a mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. If not using a mixer, just do a series of stretch and folds on the dough over a few hours to develop the gluten in the dough.
Allow the dough to bulk ferment for 8-20 hours at room temperature. The cooler your house, the longer you can let it rise or ferment.
Roll out the dough on parchment paper in the shape of a rectangle. The parchment paper helps you to easily move the dough back and forth to the freezer.
Chill the dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
Take the dough out of the freezer and spread room-temperature butter evenly on the dough, being careful to keep the butter at least 1/2 inch away from the edges of the dough. The key is to encase the butter in the dough, so you don’t want any butter squeezing out the edges of the dough.
First Fold:
Do a letter fold by folding a short side of the dough 1/3 of the way across, and the other part of the dough 1/3 of the way across towards the middle (like you would fold a letter). This will put the butter in the middle of the dough.
Chill the dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes. At this point the butter and the dough will be about the same temperature.
Take the dough out of the freezer, and roll it out again into a rectangle shape using the rolling pin.
Second Fold:
Do a second letter fold by folding both short sides of dough towards the center, which makes more layers of butter and dough.
Put it back in the freezer for 10 minutes
Third Fold:
Take it out of the freezer, and roll it out in the shape of a rectangle again (see video).
Do another letter fold and put it back in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
Take it out of the freezer, roll out the dough into a rectangle shape.
Fold the dough in half just to make it easier to handle, but don’t press it together so you can unfold it later.
Wrap in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator until you’re ready to bake with it.
Use in any recipe that calls for puff pastry. Depending on what I’m making, I usually bake it on a baking sheet at 425 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.
Tips
- Since this dough is so flexible, I like to mix up more than one batch at a time, and then just split it into individual batches of dough when it’s time to laminate it.
- The closer your dough and butter are to the same temperature, the easier it will be to laminate your dough. Putting it in the freezer for just a few minutes between laminations help to keep the butter cold so it doesn’t just mix into the dough. What you want is many individual layers of butter and dough.
- Make an egg wash out of an egg and a little water and brush the top of the dough before baking. It will give the puff pastry a beautiful golden brown color.
- Store leftover baked puff pastry in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week.
More Recipes Like This
Easy Sourdough Puff Pastry
Equipment
- 1 Mixer or medium-sized bowl
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 parchment paper
- 1 Plastic wrap
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup warm milk
- 4 Tbl sugar
- 1/2 cup active starter
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 cups all purpose flour
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. If not using a mixer, just do a series of stretch and folds on the dough over a few hours to develop the gluten in the dough.
- Allow the dough to bulk ferment for 8-20 hours at room temperature. The cooler your house, the longer you can let it rise or ferment.
- Roll out the dough on parchment paper in the shape of a rectangle. The parchment paper helps you to easily move the dough back and forth to the freezer.
- Chill the dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
- Take the dough out of the freezer and spread room-temperature butter evenly on the dough, being careful to keep the butter at least 1/2 inch away from the edges of the dough. The key is to encase the butter in the dough, so you don't want any butter squeezing out the edges of the dough.
First Fold:
- Do a letter fold by folding a short side of the dough 1/3 of the way across, and the other part of the dough 1/3 of the way across towards the middle (like you would fold a letter). This will put the butter in the middle of the dough.
- Chill the dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes. At this point the butter and the dough will be about the same temperature.
- Take the dough out of the freezer, and roll it out again into a rectangle shape using the rolling pin.
Second Fold:
- Do a second letter fold, which makes more layers of butter and dough.
- Put it back in the freezer for 10 minutes
Third Fold:
- Take it out of the freezer, and roll it out again.
- Do another letter fold and put it back in the freezer for about 10 minutes.
- Take it out of the freezer, roll out the dough into a rectangle shape.
- Fold the dough in half just to make it smaller to handle, but don't press it together so you can unfold it later.
- Wrap in plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator until you're ready to bake with it.
- Use in any recipe that calls for puff pastry. Depending on what I'm making, I usually bake it on a baking sheet at 425 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes.
