Food People Eat : Fruits Custard Cream Puff Pastry

Makes 10 pieces

Puff pastry, called that because of its puffed-up appearance when baked is made from layers of rolled-out dough topped with butter then stacked together. The fat between the layers steams as it is baked and creates light, flaky layers. Puff pastry has countless uses including Croissants, Napoleons, and even savory pastry sticks.

This fine pastry is very time consuming to make but very good per-made versions are available in the frozen foods section of most grocery stores. Experiment with different brands because some are better than others. Also, see quick puff pastry as another option.

I made these at last minute for my dinner tonight. Thought I need more practice, because I plan to make puffs for afternoon tea at Eng's house on Sunday. And, Yap is going to make me a cup of good coffee with his Nespresso Coffee Machine. Haha, new toy for the boys!

I spent one hour to made the puff pastry. What you need is a packet of ready to use frozen puff pastry sheets and some fresh fruits or canned fruits, custard powder, milk and sugar.

To make custard cream, you need

2 tbsp Custard Powder

1 tbsp Milk Powder (Substitute with 3 tbsp fresh milk)

3 tbsp Castor Sugar

250 ml Water (Room temperature)

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

To make puff pastry, you need

I packet Frozen Puff Pastry Sheets (10 pieces pr packet)

1 Egg, lightly beaten, for egg wash

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 small knife

1 small brush

Fruits

You can put favorite fruits such as fresh strawberries, blue berries, canned peach, canned oranges, fresh kiwi, grape, passion fruit and dragon fruits. Cut and slice.

To make syrup, you need

5 g Instant Jelly Powder

50 g Castor Sugar

200 ml Water

1 small brush

~ Bring to boil and dissolve. Leave to luke warm. Brush onto fruit puff.

To make custard cream, put all ingredients into a small pot over low flame and stir with spoon slowly for 3 to 5 minutes till become smooth and thicken.

Shiny and smooth custard cream. set aside.

Cut and slice the fruits small and thinly. Keep the cut fruits in the fridge. We're going to use it later.

1 Egg and 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract. Put these two ingredients into a small bowl, lightly beaten. Use as egg wash. Set aside.

I used local "Kawan" brand Puff Pastry. It's only MYR 4.50/10pc/pkt. Pretty cheap, rite! You can use imported brands if you can't find local brands. Kawan brand Puff Pastry come with square 4" X 4" size, exactly the size I want. These puff pastry are suitable for making Sardine Puff, Tuna Mayo Puff, Chicken Potato Carry Puff, Char Siew Puff, Apple Pie, Pineapple Pie, Molten Chocolate Pie, Vols au Vent, Cheese Sticks and etc.

To make great puff pastry, it is important to keep the dough cold at all times. There are specified times for chilling the dough, but if your room is warm, or you work slowly, or you find that for no particular reason the butter starts to ooze out of the pastry, cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate it . You can stop at any point in the process and continue at your convenience or when the dough is properly chilled.

To make a diamond shape, point to point, fold the puff pastry into half. I used a small knife to cut one straight line from each side. Like this picture showed.

Lift up one side which is from right, pull the dough (strip) to left. And, the same, pull the dough (strip) from left to right to make diamond shape. Gently firmly press against the top and bottom edges of the square.

Place the shaped dough on the lined baking pan. Brush them with egg wash.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Or 10 minutes before put your puff pastries in oven. Bake at 400˚ F for about 15 to 20 minutes or just until golden brown. Allow to cool completely before filling them.