Ever thought of how puffy, buttery and flaky pastries are made? It starts with puff pastry dough, a multi-layered pastry dough with fat (usually butter) tucked in every layer. Making puff pastry dough from scratch is no easy task so I decided to start off my puff pastry pizza with frozen puff pastry, readily available at supermarkets.
I never knew how easy it was to use frozen puff pastry. Just thaw it for 8-10 at room temperature and it's ready to use!
Here's what I used in my attempt:
Frozen puff pastry squares
1 egg yolk for egg wash
1 block mozzarella, grated
For pizza sauce:
1/4 cup tomato puree
1 tsp mixed herbs
1 tsp chilli powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Toppings:
Baby tomatoes, halved
Fresh basil leaves
Fresh button mushrooms, sliced
Eggs
Any toppings you'd like - I'd love pineapple and ham in my next attempt.
Use a knife to draw out a square border for your fillings. The area without the fillings will puff up during the baking process.
Mix together the ingredients for the pizza sauce, place just one dollop in the middle of the puff pastry then spread it out with the back of your spoon. Stay within that border you scored. Next grab about a tbsp of grated mozzarella and spread it out on the pizza sauce. The toppings come on next. Don't pile too much on it cause it will make the center soggy.
Be cautioned that mushrooms releases moisture during the cooking process so I had some with wet pastry in the center. Eggs are hard to handle when there's a small space too. This small square could not fit one egg and most of mine spilled beyond the cheese barrier.
Finally, brush some egg wash on the outer border then into the oven for 25-30 minutes or when the sides are golden brown. For my batch, the puff pastry needed to be on the top rack to brown and cook properly so I assume this is needed for all other recipes as well.
The puff pastry will puff up really high in the oven but they'll deflate once they're out of the oven (and out of hot air)
I was amazed at how easy it was to make these. Even a small toaster oven will do if you don't have an oven.
Puffy and pretty, the pastry wall was very flaky and buttery. I'm surprised they tasted so good even though they came out of the freezer.
My favorite topping was the tomato and basil though I'm actually a fan of neither. The tomatoes became sweet after the roasting and the simplicity really hit the spot. To solve the soggy mushroom problem, I'd suggest cooking the mushrooms separately then pilling them on top of the pastries.
The egg ones turned out to be the least pretty ones but still tasted good so that's something to improve on.
Overall, I was really pleased with this little experiment and will most definitely make them again. Things to note are not to pile on too much topping, beware of high moisture toppings and my mum says to roll the puff pastry flatter to get more surface area.
Happy Baking!