Shoutout to that pastry chef who told me to chill my mixing bowl

Last month I was making a batch of puff pastry for a brunch special and it kept turning out like a brick. My butter was melting into the dough no matter what I did. Then this pastry chef from a French place down the street stopped by to borrow some vanilla and saw me working. She said I needed to put my mixing bowl and even the rolling pin in the fridge for 20 minutes before starting. I thought she was being dramatic but I tried it the next day and the layers actually came out right for once. Now I keep a couple sheet pans and bowls in the walk-in cooler just for dough work. Anybody else got a simple tip from a random kitchen visitor that totally changed your game? I'm curious what other little tweaks I might be missing.

2 comments

2 Comments

amymason25d ago

Heard somewhere that Julia Child kept her butter in ice water...

anthony42625d ago

Honestly I read somewhere that temperature control is like 80% of pastry work and that completely changed how I think about baking. Tbh I used to just grab whatever bowl was clean and start mixing but now I keep my bench scraper and even the marble slab in my fridge if I'm doing laminated doughs. Ngl I learned the hard way that room temp butter is great for cookies but terrible for croissants or rough puff. The French chef who told her that probably learned it from some old-school training manual from the 1800s where they didn't even have electric mixers. It's funny how such a tiny tweak like chilling your tools can turn a brick into something flaky.