Test Kitchen notebook

Frozen puff pastry that’s

good enough for the pros

Not all puff pastry is equal, as we learned in making apple tarts. Most of us buy frozen Pepperidge Farm puff pastry -- which is about all you’ll see in supermarkets. While good, it doesn’t have that terrific, buttery flavor of pastry so often found in restaurant desserts. That’s because it contains no butter, just shortening and oils.

With a bit of searching, you can find professional-quality puff pastry made from butter. It produces a fabulous flaky crust and imparts a delicious butter flavor. The trick is working with it.

While supermarket puff pastry must be thawed at least 30 minutes before rolling, the professional pastry we used needs to stand just three to four minutes. Any longer and the butter begins to soften and the dough becomes difficult to handle. Work quickly, handling the dough as little as possible. The pastry sheets, which are larger than the supermarket style, are easier to work with if you cut them in half. The Orange Bakery brand of pastry we used was a generous 16-by-24 inches.

Orange Bakery puff pastry is sold at Gourmet Imports, 921 Meridian Ave., South Pasadena, (626) 441-9600; 16-by-24-inch sheets are $4.50 each; 8-by-12-inch sheets are $2.25. Surfas in Culver City sells 11-by-14-inch sheets of Dufour puff pastry for $10.64 each; Surfas, 8825 National Blvd., Culver City, (310) 559-4770.