Half or Semi French? – Ciasto pȯłfrancuskie 3

There are two similarly named pastries in Polish cookery:

• Ciasto francuskie  – translates as French pastry – this is puff pastry.
• Ciasto pȯłfrancuskie  – translates as half or semi French pastry.

I have seen ciasto pȯłfrancuskie described as rough puff pastry  – but it  is not – rough puff is a slightly easier and quicker version of puff pastry.

I have seen many different recipes for this semi-French pastry and they fall into three broad categories:

• ciasto pȯłfrancuskie  – śmietanowe – dough  made with some soured cream. 
• ciasto pȯłfrancuskie – serowe  –  dough made with twaróg – curd cheese.
• ciasto pȯłfrancuskie – drożdźowe – dough made with yeast.

Ciasto  pȯłfrancuskie 3 – with yeast

This is very much like the pastry used to make real French croissants, which are more yeast based than the crumbly puff pastry type you get here in England.

Note – This recipe takes most of the day with frequent bits of activity and longer times of rest. 

• There are two parts to this pastry:
• The first is to make a yeast pastry and I have used the rogaliki (little horns) recipe which I posted recently for this.
• The second is to use lots of butter and to layer up the pastry as you would do for puff pastry.
• I have seen lots of different methods for adding the butter and doing the layering as well as how cold the butter should be and how long to rest between layering, whether to chill and how often. – I have described one of the shorter ways of doing this.

Ingredients – Yeast Dough

Leaven – Starter

• 150g plain flour
• 200ml warm milk
• 4 tablespoons of granulated sugar
• 1 pkt of dried yeast (= 1 tablespoon)
  

  Rest of Ingredients

• 300g plain flour
• 100g butter
• 2 yolks
• *
• a little more milk might be needed 
• Egg white to glaze
• Icing sugar to dust
• *
• For layering
• Around 180g of butter

Method

• Mix the yeast and sugar into the hand hot milk.
• Put 150g of flour into a bowl and mix in the milk mixture until it is like double cream.
• Cover the bowl and leave it to rise.
• *
• Rub the butter into the 300g of flour until it is like breadcrumbs.
• Add the egg yolks and the yeast starter.
• Mix till you get a soft dough – you might need to add a tablespoon or so of milk – depends on the flour.
• Knead the dough till you have a nice smooth ball.
• Leave in a bowl, covered, to rise and double in size.
• *
• Place the butter into a dish and leave at room temperature to soften.
• Knead the risen dough lightly for a few minutes.
• **
• Roll out the dough out thinly into a large rectangle.
• Spread a around a sixth of the butter over 2/3rds of the surface.
• Fold the dough without the butter over a third of the dough.
• Fold the rest of the dough over this – making a rectangle.
• Turn the dough by 90°.
• Repeat the rolling, butter spreading and folding
• Leave to rest for around 10 minutes.
• ***
• Repeat from ** to *** twice.
• *
• Cover the dough in greaseproof paper and place in the fridge for about 30 minutes or longer if you do not want to use just straight away.
• When you want to use the dough take it out of the fridge for 20 minutes
• *
• Pre-heat the oven to GM 4 – 180°C
• Grease two baking sheets.
• Roll the dough out into a rectangle to use.

 

• I made rogaliki but you can do other shapes & use fillings.
• *
• Cut into eight triangles.
• Roll  each one up from the large end.
• Place them on a baking sheet – as far apart as possible.
• Brush the tops with egg white.
• Cover loosely and leave for about 15 minutes.
• Bake for around 15 minutes.
• Leave to cool slightly
• You can dust with icing sugar.

Phew! this was a marathon but I wanted to try this to see how it is done.