Things to do on a sick day, #145:
Make homemade puff pastry



In May of this year, I had a spinach and feta pastry (with — yum! *cough*ick*cough* &mdash a Lactaid) from the Michel's Baguette near work. Knowing full well that eating more of them as frequently as I'd like would probably result in debilitating damage to my digestive tract, I researched a few recipes for puff pastry, finally deciding on attempting this one, planning on substituting the butter with a non-hydrogenated shortening. I printed off the recipe that very day. Then the poor print-out sat, unloved, in my "to do" recipe binder for the next four months.

For the better part of this morning, after having just such a gastro-intestinal blowout as I've been trying to avoid, I opted to call in sick. Having caught up on all pressing domestic matters earlier in the week, I decided the solid chunk of time required to make my first pastry recipe wouldn't be too overwhelming in this instance. I began the pastry at noon, and all work on it was completed by 6pm. At 10:30pm, I made (and sampled two of) the croissants shown in the photo above.

I'm pleased to report that the recipe was surprisingly easy, if time-consuming, and the results are great! I am so glad to finally have a trans-fat- and dairy-free pastry option available to me. This recipe is definitely worth it.

Plans for the remainder of the dough include more croissants for breakfast sandwiches, spinach and goat cheese pastries and crab rangoon. I might even get around to making sweet pastries, once I exhaust all the savoury possibilites. :)