As much as I adore Masterchef and Bake Off I do sometimes wonder if they can put home cooks off trying new things.
Watching Bake Off it seems puff pastry making is as difficult as dismantling an atomic bomb and twice as stressful. Make this with kids? No chance! Again much like Joey from Friends in the milk carton advert I thought, “There’s got to be a better way?”
And there is Kevin!
With 4 ingredients and a fridge you can have lovely flakey pastry in no time! Perfect for all the naughty treats your kids will actually eat such as pasties and sausage rolls. Puff pastry is easily available in shops but, as with most baking, it’s 10 times tastier made at home without any added nasties.
You will need a rolling pin, cheese grater and cling film.
Ingredients.
225g plain flour
200g butter (fridge cold and solid)
100ml cold water
Decent pinch of salt
Pop the flour, salt and 50 grams of the butter in a large mixing bowl and get your kids hands right in there. Rub the butter into the flour until it’s all crumbled in.
Gradually add the water until you have a slightly sticky ball of dough (image 1 below)
Roll out to an oblong as thin as you can (1-2cm thickness) see image 2.
Using the cheese slice panel (image 3 above) thinly slice your fridge-solid butter, and place along the bottom two thirds of the rolled out dough (top left image below)
Fold the top third down over the butter (top left below) and then fold the bottom, butter covered third up to make a pastry parcel (bottom left).
Seal the edges of the pastry parcel down with your fingers and roll back out to an oblong again.
Repeat the process of placing the sliced butter on the bottom two thirds and folding over another two times and once you’ve done the final fold (and have a pastry parcel resembling the below) wrap in cling film and pop in the fridge.
Give it at least 30 minutes chill time. We decided to have some sink play time which resulted in a mildly flooded kitchen but very happy baby…
Once chilled you can use your pastry for whatever you fancy. We rolled ours out and wrapped around some lovely lean MOR sausages to make sausage rolls and they were amazing! Any offcuts can be stacked back on top and re-rolled out. (Don’t knead or mix).
This pastry can also be made sweet by adding 40g icing sugar in with the flour at the first stage.
Whatever you decide to make with your lovely buttery pastry, try to make sure you enjoy some before your kids scoff the lot 😉
Baking With Kids 