Homemade Puff Pastry

Sift the flour into a large bowl and mix it the salt.

Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of the cold water on the flour and use the end of your fingers and and lift the flour up and let it fall back, while rubbing your fingers together.

Add another 2 tablespoons of water and repeat the action of rubbing in the water into the flour. Keep repeating until you have a dough that comes together in clumps and stays forms a rough, crumbly dough when pressed together.

Press the crumbly dough together into a rectangular dough, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Cut the butter up into 4 little pieces and place them between 2 sheets of baking paper. Pound with a rolling pin to make the butter pliable and shape it into a square with 10cm/4 inches sides. Wrap it up in the baking paper and place it in the fridge while you get the dough ready.

Lightly flour your work surface and roll the chilled dough into a rough square with 20cm/8 inches sides.

Get the butter out of the fridge and place the cold but pliable square of butter on the dough, with its sides facing the corners of the dough.

Fold over the corners of the dough to meet in the middle of the butter. Pinch to seal.

Roll out the dough slightly into a long rectangle. Lightly line and divide the rectangle into 3.

Fold the bottom third up and the top third down, like folding a letter. Seal the dough gently by pressing down on the edges with your rolling pin.

Wrap the dough in plastic or cling film and chill the dough for 30 minutes. So we’ve just done 2 folds, or turns. We are going to repeat that 2 more times, making a total of 6 folds (or turns), chilling for 30 minutes after the 4th fold, and 1 hour after the final 6th fold before using.

Puff pastry can be frozen after the 4th fold, then thaw overnight in the fridge and complete the final 2 folds and follow the recipe.