Feuilletage chocolat / chocolate puff pastry

I’ve been promising for ages to do a step-by-step puff pastry write up. I thought I’d do something a little different and use a chocolate puff pastry or ‘feuilletage chocolat’.

The process for making this is exactly the same as for any puff pastry so you can follow this method whether you are creating ‘normal’ puff pastry or chocolate; it’s just that it’s chocolate.

My chocolate puff pastry includes some spices, just to give it some additional flavour.

Maths, algebra and making puff pastry

You might like to look at my post which covers the maths behind puff pastry! How the number of leaves in the pastry increase with every turn… please see my ‘Maths, algebra and making puff pastry’ post

Equipment

Bowls (one large, a couple of smaller)
Fine sieve
Rolling pin
Cling film

Ingredients

Plain flour – 250g
Cocoa powder – 30g
Unsalted butter – 175g in a block and an extra 40g for melting
Nutmeg, freshly grated – a pinch
Cinnamon – a pinch
Fine salt – a pinch
Water, cold – about 100ml
A little extra flour for dusting and rolling

Method

Sieve the cocoa – as it often has lumps – into the large bowl
You shouldn’t need to sieve modern flours but you can do if you prefer (originally, sieving was to remove the flour weevils and other nasty stuff, but it’s continued to persist as normal practice. I only sieve if any product appears clumpy, as cocoa powder can sometimes). Tip or sieve the flour into the large bowl with the cocoa powder
Add the other dry ingredients (salt, cinnamon, nutmeg), the melted butter and about 80ml of the water
Mix together. Then add the rest of the water little by little if you feel it is too dry and not coming together nicely. The dough is a bit stickier and thicker (but only a little) than plain puff pastry
Shape the dough into a rough, flattened square about 15cm across and dust lightly and then cover with cling film
With the rest of the butter, shape this into a flat square the same size as the dough and cover with cling film

Chill both pastry and butter for up to two hours. However I confess I cheat and stick it in the freezer for 10 minutes – it never seems to affect the quality of the pastry
Now, take the chocolate pastry and roll it out into a larger square (about twice the original size).

Unwrap the butter and place in the middle of the pastry
Fold in the corners of the pastry over the butter like an envelope
Roll the envelope gently to flatten and straighten it

Now roll the pastry so that it extends to three times its original length, making a long rectangle – its short side to long side should be a 1:3 ratio

You will now make what’s called a gatefold, by folding the top short edge over and the bottom short edge upwards over that. Imagine the rectangle is three squares – fold at the two edges where the squares meet
Straighten up the edges and corners with your hands to be as neat as possible

Rotate the pastry 90˚, roll out to a rectangle again as in step 13
Repeat the gatefold folding process again as in step 14
Again, straighten up the dough and then loosely cover with cling film and pop in the fridge for an hour or the freezer for 10 minutes
Take the dough out and repeat this rolling out, folding, turning, rolling out and folding process again (steps 13 – 17). By this stage you have made four folds
Again, straighten up the dough and then loosely cover with cling film and pop in the fridge for an hour or the freezer for 10 minutes
Take the dough out and repeat this rolling out, folding, turning, rolling out and folding process again (steps 13 – 17). By this stage you have made six folds – this is enough. This has made 729 layers or leaves of pastry!

Now your pastry is ready for use in your recipe – chill it again for a while first, though