Make no mistake! How to choose the Ideal puff pastry in your next purchase
What are the criteria for choosing a good commercial puff pastry dough? Are the most expensive ones better? Should we go for the most popular brand? In this article we will find out what we should look for to choose the best packaged puff pastry in the supermarket.
Puff pastry dough is a great ally in the kitchen. Its versatility allows us to cook an infinite number of recipes, both sweet and savory. While a good homemade puff pastry dough is a real delight and adds quality to our elaborations, we are not going to fool ourselves, making it at home is a very laborious task that requires few ingredients but, on the other hand, a lot of patience, time and technique. So, it is no wonder that the most affordable solution for everyone is to go to the supermarket to buy one. Spread the dough, put our favorite ingredients, bake and ready, and voilá we would have our pizza, quiches, appetizers or the recipe we have chosen, almost effortlessly.
If we opt for a commercial puff pastry, let's see together what we should look at to choose the best option. Because as we already said, not always the most expensive or the best known brands are the best.
Ingredients
The first thing we should look at is the ingredients indicated on the package. A homemade puff pastry simply contains water, flour, butter, salt and sometimes a little sugar. So, avoid those brands whose list of ingredients includes many more than those indicated. Make sure it has as few additives as possible.
The fat indicated in the ingredients is another key to pay attention to. Opt, whenever possible, for a dough made with butter and discard those made with vegetable fats such as palm oil or hydrogenated fats or trans fats.
With raw dough
Once the dough has been rolled out and is still raw, we should pay attention to the physical and olfactory characteristics of the dough.
Check that, to the touch, the dough is not dry and that it has some moisture.
Check that the appearance of the dough is smooth, soft and that the color is homogeneous, that it does not have darker spots (that would mean that the ingredients are not homogeneously mixed).
Puff pastry dough does not contain yeast or leavening agents. Its layers swell due to the evaporation effect of the water in the butter, which pushes the different layers together. Therefore, avoid those doughs that smell like over-fermented dough or beer when you smell them.
Once the dough is cooked
A good puff pastry is characterized by the fact that the dough is very soft and puffy. When cutting the dough, check that many layers have been created on the inside and that there are air spaces between each layer. This indicates that a lot of folds have been made during preparation.
On the palate, check that the dough is not dry. If there is any moisture left, this means that it is most likely made with butter.
In terms of taste, a good puff pastry dough should have a balanced taste, neither too sweet nor too salty, with a buttery aftertaste and a dough that is not insipid. Avoid those doughs that do not taste of anything and do not add flavor to our elaboration.
After baking, check that the puff pastry has a nice golden color and smells like a bakery.
