# Need help with puff pastry



## littlesilver (Sep 26, 2018)

I am currently trying to develop a new product that uses puff pastry to wholesale. I am making my own puff pastry. When I tried my recipe at home, using king Arthur all purpose flour and kitchenaid mixer, it worked really well. However when I was at the commercial kitchen and used sir galahad flour and a commercial dough mixer and a sheeter, the puff pastry turned out to be different. It tasted not as crispy. It seemed to have more moisture. At first, I thought it was the sheeter's problem. So after making the dough block and the butter block, I took them home and finished the folds at home. The puff pastry still turned out to be less crispy. That made me think the problem might lie in the dough kneading process. At home, I knead the dough at speed 1 for 5 mins and speed 2 for 3 mins with kitchenaid, and in the commercial kitchen, I do the same thing with the commercial mixer except the quantity is 15 times larger. My question is when using a commercial mixer, is there any difference from using a home mixer? should I knead the dough longer or shorter? or should I reduce the water content in my recipe? please help......thanks!


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## Seoul Food (Sep 17, 2018)

As far as the mixing being the same, I would think so. For the flour, is the King Arthur considered a AP flour while the Sir Galahad is closer to a bread flour? That may be your difference there.


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## littlesilver (Sep 26, 2018)

Seoul Food said:


> As far as the mixing being the same, I would think so. For the flour, is the King Arthur considered a AP flour while the Sir Galahad is closer to a bread flour? That may be your difference there.


Hi,Thank you for the reply. I contacted king Arthur by phone before I purchased the flour and they confirmed to me that these two flours are the same and interchangeable.


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## fatcook (Apr 25, 2017)

Are you baking both batches in the same oven?

I am assuming since it wasn't mentioned - you are using the same butter? The water content can vary brand to brand.

Are you chilling the water? It could be getting warmer in the commercial kitchen.

The mixer can also be a difference, even between two sizes of KA you get different actual speeds on the same setting.

Are you dividing the dough into smaller portions once it is mixed? The resting time may need to be increased to be sure the flour is hydrating completely.

To eliminated the flour difference, take some of the Sir Galahad home and try a batch there from the beginning.

And of course, it wouldn't hurt to try reducing the water and see what happens.


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## chefpeon (Jun 14, 2006)

I checked to make sure, and the King Arthur AP sold retail has the same protein content as the Sir Galahad; 11.7%.

If the puff is coming out less crispy and has more moisture, then the problem either lies in the water content of the butter you are using for your roll-in, the amount of water you add to the initial dough, or the actual temperature of the oven you are baking in, or the amount of time you are baking the puff. If there are two items people consistently underbake, it's pate choux and puff pastry.

You didn't mention your ovens. Is the one at the bakery a convection? Do you use convection at home? Because convection ovens blow hot air around, they bake things faster, so the general rule is, if you bake something at 350 F in a conventional oven, then you would bake the same thing around 25 degrees less in a convection oven. I can see a scenario where you might be baking your puff in a convection at the bakery at the same temp you are baking it at home in a conventional. That would brown the top of the pastry quickly leaving the inside moister, and even somewhat raw. To get to the heart of the problem, we need to rule things out. I think the kneading time has no bearing on the crispness of the product. The necessary development of the gluten happens mostly during the roll out, so you don't really have to knead the dough much in initial mixing. If you overknead the dough in the initial mixing though, you'll end up with a tough product that shrinks a lot.

I've deduced it to be either an oven difference/time/temp problem or a butter issue, based on the info you've provided.


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## retiredbaker (Dec 29, 2019)

Seoul Food said:


> As far as the mixing being the same, I would think so. For the flour, is the King Arthur considered a AP flour while the Sir Galahad is closer to a bread flour? That may be your difference there.


Correct, its the flour.
Galahad is milled from hard winter wheat and is closer to a weak bread flour.
It will make the puff dough hard , brittle and less flaky.
If you must use galahad, substitute 25% cake flour in to get a more tender flake.


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## retiredbaker (Dec 29, 2019)

littlesilver said:


> Hi,Thank you for the reply. I contacted king Arthur by phone before I purchased the flour and they confirmed to me that these two flours are the same and interchangeable.


The flour is similar enough as far as they're concerned but the slight difference has a huge affect in the real world.


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