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French pâtisserie technique: puff pastry with a single turn

How to fold puff pastry with a single turn by Le Cordon Bleu Chefs

In this series of videos, our chefs are sharing some of the classic French techniques we teach to more than 20,000 students on our programmes around the world each year. In the below video we show you how to fold puff pastry with a single turn. We also show you just one of the many applications of puff pastry - how to make palmiers.

Puff pastry is a versatile product that, once mastered, can add wide array of dishes into your repertoire. Here we show you how to use puff pastry to make classic palmiers - their caramelised crunch makes for a perfect sweet treat.

Chef’s tips: Puff pastry can be used to create various patisseries, including Galette des Rois, Palmiers and Fresh Fruit Mille-feuilles. If you allow the dough to over-chill, the butter will become too hard and crack when rolled out, so it’s important to stick to the allotted times in the recipe.

When laminating the dough and the butter for puff pastry, work on a cool surface to prevent the butter melting and forming a heavy dough. In hot weather, refrigerate the dough for an extra 15 minutes during the final resting.

 

Ingredients

Puff pastry:
  • 300 g butter
  • 1 kg dough
  • flour for dusting
Palmiers:
  • sugar for dusting

Method

Puff pastry, single turn:

Roll your dough into a rectangular shape.

Add your rolled out butter to the bottom of your dough. The rolled out butter should be two thirds the length of your dough and 2cm thinner on either side. Fold the top third of your dough over the butter, and then fold the bottom third with butter and dough over the first fold. Turn your butter and dough inclusion 90 degrees. Roll out again into a rectangular shape, repeat these folds and chill for 20 minutes. Repeat the same folds five more times chilling for 20 minutes in between turns. When you have completed your five further folds, chill in the refrigerator for 30-60 minutes, until firm.

Palmiers:

Remove your dough from the refrigerator, roll out with sugar to a thickness of 2-3mm. Crease your rolled out dough at the halfway mark and fold. Unfold your dough and take the bottom half of your dough and fold in half to meet the centre crease, repeat with the top half. Brush half of the bottom quarter with water and fold up to the quarter crease. Take this new fold, brush the top and fold again. Repeat this with the top quarter crease. Bring these two folded sections in the centre fold and roll flat. Fold the two flat folded sections over each other, and roll flat. Chill for 30 minutes.

Cut the dough into 1cm sized pieces. Lay onto a buttered baking tray and flatten with the base of your palm.

Bake at 180-190°C for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Turn halfway through when you see caramelisation on the bottom of the palmiers.



 

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