flat sheet of butter

The idea is create a flat sheet of butter and place it on a sheet of yeast dough rolled flat as a pizza and fold in layers, roll out again, fold again, repeatedly until there are a stack of exceedingly thin but still discrete layers, and that works by keeping the butter cold.

Step 1: Create a spot in the freezer or the refrigerator, or both, that can accommodate a regular size baker's tray.

You see, we baker-types are actually temperature manipulators. We don't just bake things. We freeze things too. Puff pastry works by temperature control. The butter must not blend into the dough and that is prevented by keeping both dough and butter cold.

Step 2: Pull two of the same size trays. Pull enough kitchen plastic to cover one of them. Put the plastic covered tray in the freezer.

Step 3: Make dough.

1 Cup flour
1/2 Cup warm water
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp dry active yeast

Mix vigorously in a bowl cover with a plate and set aside.

Step 4: Make butter sheet.

One stick of butter (4 oz / 1/2 Cup)

See? Twice the mass of flour to butter, but the same weight of each. One cup of flour weights 4 oz and so does 1/2 Cup butter.

Freeze.

The sheet pans determine the size of everything. The dough will be rolled out to the full size of the pan while the butter is freezing.  The butter-slab needs to be 2/3 the size of the dough so proceed accordingly.

Butter is melted and poured onto frozen plastic-covered sheet so pour as close to top and bottom edge as possible and allow wide margins on both sides. Or else visualize a border for both trays, rolled dough and butter.

A pizza is un-risen bread dough and so is this. It does rise a little bit but go ahead and roll it to the size of the pan. The dough can be thin as a cracker but it needn't be. About 1/8 inch thick but it is not so important.

The yeast in the dough layers is not important to the puffing process and there is harm done if provided warmth to proof. Do not get the idea, "Hey, I started with yeast dough to puff up and the way I do that is provide warmth, now that the croissants are formed, or whatever, if only by the warmth of room temperature kitchen. I'll allow my finished product to proof at room temperature awhile."

Do not do that.

Let the finished rolls or what have you proof, fine, but in the refrigerator. Keep the butter cold. That is how the layers are kept separate all along. Do not suddenly switch or the butter will blend.

The thing is, butter is 20% water. And now the butter and water are spread out in stacked layers between layers of dough that will also rise a little bit by yeast. The magic of puff pastry comes from water steaming out of the butter and escaping through the layers leaving the butter fat to toast the flakes. It is such a wonderful thing that occurs but water will not do that until its own internal temperature is 100℃ / 212℉ at sea level so start with an extra hot oven to thrust the whole pile kept cold so far into a shocking new reality where the only option is die; evaporate now and toast, it is your unhappy day, die puff pastry, die.

Then cut back the heat so it doesn't burn. After coming this far, allow enough time for the centers of the doughy areas to toast. What a bummer to take it out too early before it can toast and flake fully.

There are sausages inside there.

This puff pastry was brushed with olive oil because I am out of eggs and milk.

This is an exceedingly slipshod effort and it still worked beautifully.

I was tired. I rolled the dough fully only three times. 

The first was folded into three layers.

The second was folded into nine layers. 

The third was to form around sausages, so the dough did not even have the benefit of the exponential building of layers. One more turn would have made twenty seven layers. A fifth turn would produce eighty-one layers, but I did not bother with any of that because I liked what I was seeing at hand, and man, were these good and such fun to eat.

Flakes all over the place.

Flakes on my lips. Flakes on my plate. On my chair. On the floor around my chair. In my lap. Man, was that a good meal.

I made the sausages myself. 

This whole thing can be done much more easily with store-bought sausages and store-bought puff pastry. But who knows what they are using. I sure do not. 

The thing about good butter is that it needn't be from cows grazing the verdant gentle slopes of Tennessee, although that would be nice, best for butter to be fresh as possible. Butter is salted to extend its shelf life. Unsalted butter must be more carefully handled.  From my point of view unsalted butter from the closest freshest dairy is best. And it picks up odors so easily. You do not want it sitting around. 

Did you ever smell your ice cubes? Go ahead and smell you ice cubes. No, yeah, go on. 

Smell your ice cubes, I said. 

Smeeeeell 'em. 

Stick your nose right in the drinking glass and take a whiff.

You can have a brand new refrigerator, I've seen this several times, and keep it spotless and your ice stored up by your ice maker will pick up food odors. Apparently ice molecules are odor magnets. They grab odor molecules and freeze them in place. If you have an ice dispenser in your refrigerator door, I guarantee your ice smells. 

Mine does. And in their ice trays only the tops of the cubes are exposed to air, yet after a few days they smell, and that odor will affect everything. Best to make ice every day or so. Butter is the same way. Except butter is wrapped.