Rough Puff Pastry Recipe – How to Make Rough Puff Pastry

Easier to make than flaky pastry or puff pastry but has larger flakes and is not as light. It does, however, give a nice crispy crust. Uses include sweet and savoury pies, patties, turnovers and as an alternative pastry for sausage rolls.

Rough Puff Pastry Pie

Rough Puff Pastry Pie

This is a pastry I make often as a topping for a favourite dish, meat and potato pie. The slow cooked meat and par-boiled potatoes go into a large casserole dish which is topped with the pastry and oven cooked. The trimmings from the pastry are re-rolled out and cut into circles with a pastry cutter before being stuck on the topping with waterย  as a decoration.

It’s easy to increase or decrease the amount of rough puff pastry – just remember the ratio of 3 parts lard, 3 parts butter to 9 parts flour. So: 2,2,6 for a smaller amount or 4,4,12 for a larger amount.

Ingredients for Rough Puff Pastry Recipe:

  • 9 oz (253 g) plain flour
  • Pinch of salt
  • 3 oz (84 g) lard or hard vegetable fat
  • 3 oz (84 g) butter or margarine
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • Cold Water

Optional for savoury dishes, good teaspoon of mustard powder and teaspoon of cayenne pepper added at the start with the salt.

Method for Making Rough Puff Pastry:

  1. Sieve the flour and salt into a bowl and add the fat, cut into lumps about the size of a walnut. Stir into the flour.
  2. Add the lemon juice and cold water to mix to a stiff dough.
  3. Turn on to a lightly floured board and roll out into an oblong.
  4. Fold one end up, leaving about one-third of the strip to fold down, seal the edges with the rolling pin and give the pastry a half turn.
  5. Continue thus until the pastry has been rolled and folded four times. Do not roll out more than four times.
  6. If possible leave for an hour in the fridge before using. Overnight is fine as well.
  7. Roll out and use for sweet and savoury pastries.

Tip: To keep track of folds, mark with a knife tip in Roman numbers – I, II, III, IV (easier to do than our Arabic numerals)

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