Top 5
Flaky Pastry Recipes

To make the famous Viennese apfelstrudel, two things must be perfect — the dough and the filling. While the type of dough should be either regular strudel pastry, puff pastry, or shortcrust pastry, store bought pastry is also a good substitute. In addition to spices, the original recipe calls for hazelnuts to be added to the apple filling, but these can be either substituted with a different kind of nut or left out entirely. Another important ingredient in the filling is breadcrumbs, which soak up the juice the apples release during baking and keep the strudel from becoming too soggy. Once baked, the golden crust of the strudel is sprinkled with castor sugar and served hot with double cream or vanilla sauce.Expand

This flaky layered pastry can have a multitude of different fillings, both sweet and savory, but it can also be made plain, the flavor coming from the sweet and savory sides served with the pie, such as honey, molasses, tahina, clotted cream ishta, cheese, and powdered sugar. The dough is made with just flour, water, and salt, but can also include sugar and baking powder, depending on the recipe. Once the dough is made, it is divided into portions and left to rest in ghee anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. Then, professional fetir makers would spin and slap the dough against the surface until it fans out to a paper-thin sheet of dough. However, home cooks, typically roll out the balls of dough on a greased surface until paper thin — alternatively, the dough can also be stretched out with hands. Each sheet of dough is then slathered with ghee, and if there is a filling, such as beef, cheese, halwa, and raisins, it is put in the center of one sheet of dough which is folded, so it forms a square. And since one fetir is meant to be made up of multiple layers of dough, to assemble, one folded sheet of dough is enveloped in one or more sheets of dough — the more, the better. Expand

The layered pastry reminiscent of a sea shell, sfogliatella, is the pride and joy of Italy’s Campania region, with origins in the 17th century when it was supposedly created in the Santa Rosa monastery. Today, there are many kinds of sfogliatella, but Campania boats two varieties: sfogliatella frolla and sfogliatella ricca. The more famous of the group is sfogliatella ricca which is made with puff pastry, while the less known is sfogliatella frolla which is made with shortcrust pastry. And while making the puff pastry version is very time-consuming and requires a lot of work, the shortcrust pastry sfogliatella is much simpler. The fillings can be many, but the most traditional one is the ricotta, semolina, and egg filling flavored with vanilla, candied fruits, and cinnamon. Both kinds should be served warm, generously sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar. Expand

The Bakewell pudding consists of a puff pastry shell spread with strawberry jam and filled with a custard made with eggs, sugar, milk, and butter. However, the exact recipe is a guarded secret, known only to a few bakers in Bakewell. It is served warm, with custard, cream, or ice cream.Expand

Adapted from the YouTube channel Scandinavian Today, this recipe gives instructions on how to make kringle with laminated dough and an almond filling.Expand