PUFF the magic dough
Pastry transforms simple ingredients into impressive party nibbles
If your awards-night or game-day parties could use a lift, reach for puff pastry. The dough, which rises spectacularly as thin leaves of delicate pastry, can be used for everything from cocktail nibbles to dessert tarts.
Because tissue-thin layers of dough are spliced with innumerable lines of butter or some other fat to give that signature lift in baking, puff pastry has always seemed hard to make, the province of experienced cooks. No matter. Commercially produced puff pastry offers a neat and easyto-use base for any number of hors d’oeuvres.
“It allows you to serve something that looks fancy, and you feel you have done something fancy without a ton of effort,” says Chadwick Boyd, a New York City-based food and lifestyle expert who hosts “Reel Food,” those food segments you might see during previews at the movie theater.
Peter Callahan, the New York City caterer and author of “Peter Callahan’s Party Food” (Clarkson Potter, $35), wrote in an email that you should always bake puff pastry at a high temperature and for a short time, so a 450to 475-degree oven for 5 to 10 minutes. “Usually five,” he wrote.
Just remember what Boyd says: Puff pastry is a “secret weapon to always have in the freezer to put something together for party guests. In 30 minutes you can have something special and nice even with simple ingredients.”
SAUSAGE TURNOVERS
Makes: 16 turnovers
1 to 2 sheets puff pastry, thawed
16 cocktail wieners (or slice a larger frankfurter or sausage into 2-inch pieces) 1 egg, beaten 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 1 teaspoon dry mustard
¼ teaspoon Worcestershire sauce Roll pastry on a lightly floured surface into an 11-inch square. Use a 2½-inch cookie cutter to cut 16 rounds.
Arrange rounds on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Center a cocktail wiener on each pastry round; fold the pastry over, and press lightly to seal edges. Brush with egg wash.
Bake turnovers in a 425-degree oven until golden, 10 to 15 minutes. For a dipping sauce, mix the mustards and Worcestershire sauce together in a small bowl.