Rough Puff, Who knew?

Rough puff pastry in a skillet topping caramelized apples.

This is new to me and I'm totally in love with the process. I do like to make pie crust and I do like to make puff pastry, and this is a beautiful marriage of the two.

A rough puff pastry is quicker than layered puff to make AND it uses FROZEN butter! I know caps lock on two words. I must be seriously excited. One of my biggest work arounds is having my butter frozen when I want to bake. I keep pounds of it in the freezer (oh don't judge) and regularly forget to pull it in time.

So with this recipe you grate the frozen butter. I used my food processor because I can't imagine not losing some knuckle skin if you tried to grate slippery butter on a hand grater, plus it would get warmed. And the key for this recipe and all pastry is the cooler the better!

Here it is:

13 tablespoons butter
1.25 cups all purpose flour
.25 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons cold water

Grate the butter. Using a large bowl, which is cool, combine the butter, flour and salt. Quickly rub the flour into the butter. I start with a scraper and move to using my hands for the last little bit. When it's well combined, add the water. It should be moist enough to force into a ball.

Take the ball of dough and shape it into a rectangle. Do a series of 5 triple folds with the dough either consecutively or let the dough rest between the 3rd and the 4th. Let rest an hour before you use it.

This is the crust for a Tarte Tatin I'll be making eventually. Cheers.