Bichons
Puff pastry turnovers filled with a lemon and almond cream, then dipped in brown sugar. The rough puff takes its butter in pieces and needs five single folds, with a 10-minute chill before each.
- Makes
- 12 bichons
- Total
- 1,837 g
- Butter
- 80% of the flour
- Layers
- 243 of butter, on paper
The layers
Rough puff is the quick way to puff pastry: the butter goes into the dough in pieces instead of one block, then the dough is rolled and folded.
The cold dry butter goes into the dough in pieces and is only briefly mixed, so it stays in lumps.
Each time the dough is rolled, the lumps flatten into streaks, and each letter fold stacks them. Five folds, with 10 minutes in the refrigerator before each.
On paper that makes 243 layers of butter. Because the butter started as lumps, the real layers are patchier and less even.
Steam from the water in the dough and the butter lifts the layers apart. Rough puff rises less, and less evenly, than classic puff.
Why dry butter
- Butter in the USAt least 80% fat by law, about 17% water
- Dry butter for the layersAbout 84% fat, 14% water. 400 g here
Dry butter (beurre sec) has less water. It stays firm yet pliable when cold, so it rolls into one thin sheet instead of cracking or smearing into the dough, and it does not soften the dough it touches. In the US, use a European-style butter at 82% or more, or 84% laminating butter from a bakery supplier.
Rough puff pastry
| Ingredient | Grams | Baker’s % |
|---|---|---|
| 500 g | 100% | |
| 10 g | 2% | |
| 250 g | 50% | |
| 4 g | 0.8% | |
| 400 g | 80% | |
| Total | 1,164 g |
- Dissolve the salt and white vinegar in the water.
- Add the flour and the cold dry butter and mix briefly with the dough hook.
- Roll the dough into a rectangle and refrigerate 10 minutes.
- Give it a single (letter) fold, then refrigerate 10 minutes.
- Repeat the fold and the rest until you have given 5 single folds in all.
- Keep the dough in the refrigerator.
Bichon cream
| Ingredient | Grams | % of milk |
|---|---|---|
| 188 g | 100% | |
| 38 g | 20% | |
| 112 g | 60% | |
| 30 g | 16% | |
| 125 g | 66% | |
| 30 g | 16% | |
| Total | 523 g |
- Warm the milk.
- Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale. Mix in the cornstarch, then whisk in part of the hot milk.
- Cook everything together, adding the lemon purée, until the starch is fully cooked.
- Take the pan off the heat and mix in the almond powder.
- Chill the cream quickly.
Shaping and baking
| Ingredient | Grams | |
|---|---|---|
| 50 g | ||
| 100 g | ||
| Total | 150 g |
- Roll the dough 4 mm thick and cut 11 cm disks.
- Run the disks through the sheeter to 2 mm thick so they turn oval.
- Brush the edge of each oval with egg wash. Pipe a large dot of softened cream on the lower half.
- Fold the top half over and press firmly to seal. Chiqueter the edge: mark it with small notches using the back of a knife.
- Refrigerate until set.
- Turn the bichons over, brush them with water and dip them in the brown sugar.
- With a knife, cut a small vent (chimney) in the center of each one.
- Bake about 20 minutes at 180 °C (350 °F).
For bakers in the US
- All-purpose flour (T65)
- French type 65 flour; in the US, an unbleached all-purpose flour
- Laminating butter (84% fat)
- Laminating or sheet butter, about 84% fat
- Lemon purée
- Strained lemon juice can stand in; purée is thicker and often slightly sweetened, so check the brand
- Almond powder
- Almond flour (finely ground blanched almonds)
- Raw cane sugar (cassonade)
- On a French sheet, cassonade: raw cane sugar like turbinado or demerara; US soft brown sugar is moister
- Chiqueter
- Mark the sealed edge with small cuts from the back of a knife so the layers rise evenly and stay sealed
