So you’ve decided to host an Oscars party this year, but you aren’t sure what to serve. Because obviously you want something extra fancy, something that will allow you to shine nearly as brightly as those folks on the red carpet.
My advice is to serve up a slate of hors d’oeuvres wrapped in puff pastry, the super-elegant dough perfected by — who else? — the French. In France, it’s called mille-feuille, which translates into “a thousand leaves.” That’s their way of describing the recipe’s many layers of fat sandwiched between an equal number of layers of dough. The pastry puffs up as the trapped butter gives off steam as it cooks, resulting in a confection that is remarkably light and airy.
But it’s not exactly a breeze to produce. So here’s a simpler version, known variously as rough puff pastry, quick puff pastry, or blitz puff pastry. It’s actually not much quicker than full blown puff pastry, but it certainly is much easier to prepare. This recipe yields about a pound of dough, enough to produce several dozen hors d’oeuvres. It is followed by some suggestions for fillings for those hors d’oeuvres.
Making rough puff pastry is like making regular old pie dough, at least to start. You combine butter and flour, then add ice-cold water. But for rough puff pastry you don’t break down the butter into small chunks, as you would for pie dough. Rough puff pastry should look downright shaggy and chunky after you’ve first mixed it. It won’t become very smooth until you roll and fold it and develop all those layers.