Puff pastry de John Spottiswood

This is dough topped with chilled butter that's rolled out and folded again and again until there are hundreds of layers of butter and dough. The dough expands and the layers separate when it's baked, creating a marvelously rich and flaky pastry. Puff pastry is used to make croissants, Napoleons, Beef Wellington, pie crusts, and many other sweet and savory pastries. You can make puff pastry yourself, but it's hard to improve on the ready-made stuff sold in the frozen foods section of many supermarkets. Let frozen puff pastry defrost for about 30 minutes before you roll it out, but don't let it get too warm or it will become sticky.