Empanada Pastry
Yield: about 12 – 6” empanada rounds (for meat or mushroom empanadas) or 20 – 4.5” rounds (for cheese)
Ingredients:
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
- 7 + Tablespoons ice water
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
- 1 ¼ cups (2 ½ sticks) chilled butter
Directions
Thinly slice ¾ c. (1½ sticks butter), set aside.
Whisk sugar, salt and 2 ½ c. flour in a large bowl to combine.
Grate 1 stick butter on the large holes of a box grater directly into the bowl of dry ingredients. Work as quickly as possible so the butter doesn’t soften too much in your hands. Toss the butter with the flour mixture to coat. (If making double or more recipe, freeze the butter and grate in a processor, then add to dry ingredients)
Add the sliced butter to the bowl, quickly smashing the slices with your fingers into smaller, flatter pieces. Don’t try to thoroughly blend flour and butter, as the little pieces of unblended butter will make the dough flaky.
Gradually drizzle in 7 T. ice water, tossing constantly with a fork to distribute. Knead the dough a couple of times in the bowl to bring together into large clumps. Transfer clumps to a large piece of plastic wrap, leaving dry bits behind. Drizzle more ice water, 1 teaspoon at a time, onto the dry bits as needed until they hold together, when squeezed. Add that to the dough on the plastic.
Wrap the dough in the plastic wrap and flatten into a 9”-wide rectangle. Flatten, pressing out any air.
Chill 2 hours or overnight.
Remove dough from refrigerator and let sit at room temperature about 4 minutes. Roll out on a lightly floured surface into a long rectangle, about ¼” thick. Fold into thirds like a letter and rotate 90 degrees and again roll into ¼” thick rectangle. Fold into thirds, wrap in the plastic, and refrigerate 30 m.
Repeat the rolling and folding step two more times, for a total of 3 times, resting dough in the refrigerator at least 30 m. after each rolling/folding session. You can roll and fold fewer times, but your pastry will not be nearly as flaky.
Remove from refrigerator. To make rolling easier, cut dough in half, leaving one half in the refrigerator until ready to use. Roll out dough to 1/8” thick. Cut into rounds as needed.
Place rounds between pieces of parchment paper and place in freezer-safe baggie. Refrigerate the rounds immediately after rolling and cutting. Use within 2 days or freeze for up to 6 months.
Adapted from Bon Appetit’s “Shortcut Puff Pastry”