The lost art of making phyllo dough by hand

[ClutchLinkey]

@cannibalpeas

The technique they use to put a bubble under the dough is similar to what I see more traditional pizzerias use. They’ll quickly lift one side like a bedsheet and put a bubble under it. I noticed and asked why they were doing it, but I can’t remember why.

In this video he says it helps stretch it out in the middle more, and that keeping the edges a little thicker helps with the overall stretching.

[cannibalpeas]

Yeah, that may have been the reason; keep the crust thin and crispy.

[someguy]

@navarro

pasta, which was good but the ratio of improvement over mass-produced to the difficulty of doing it was too low to make me want to do it often

Really?? I feel like pasta is so easy, and SO much better than store bought, that the only downside is that I eat too much pasta. Was making it weekly for a while, and was able to have the pasta made before the water was boiling.

[Anyhoo]

Went through the rough puff link provided and reckon it is actually more time consuming than the traditional technique which uses room temperature butter in the initial setup of the dough all at once then three rolling out with 3rd turns (as in the link) with 20min resting times in the fridge. Mixing the butter into the dough at the start is a common commercial cheat - the idea is to have many layers of dough separated by butter, much like a Greek Filo.

So first 3 rolls is 3x3x3=27 layers, then the 2nd 3 rolls is (27x3)x3x3=729, then the 3rd 3 rolls is (729x3)x3x3=19683 layers. The moisture in the dough creates steam and the butter separates the layers giving the rise.

I suspect the traditional method will rise higher and actually be simpler to make… I usually eyeball the ingredient measurements and critically knead the bejeebus out of the dough to make it tough enough for all the rolling.

[snigs]

I’ve honestly forgotten what was my initial internet recipe, it may have been the one provided or this:https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/rough-puff-pastry. I also put all the butter in at the start, though I started by doing it in shifts. I’ve never done room temperature butter, always started with it from either the fridge or freezer. Freezer seems to work better, but that’s my guess, haven’t done a side by side. From what I’ve heard, leaving in big streaks of butter with not too much kneading, you are having layers where wheaty dough is layered above buttery dough, randomly, which are thinned and folded. I don’t usually count, I do a bunch of folds, and it puffs nicely. It compares well to store bought puff. I have never done a traditional classic puff from scratch, so don’t know how it stacks up to that, but from what I’ve read, that seems to involve more precise technique involving origami sorts of folds, and the rough worked for me so I’ve kept with it.