Seasoned Advice Asked by Piko Monde on August 19, 2021
I tried to create puff pastry.
For medical reasons I should minimize the fat on my recipe. Puff pastry is mainly made by 3 important ingredients, flour, water, and fat (butter or oil).
Unfortunately, I learned that butter and oil, consist of 100% fat. I’ve successfully created puff pastry using oil in a pan before. It works! I create 2 doughs, one dough is formed using flour and water, the other one is using flour and oil. Then, I do the pastry folding.
So as no-fat alternative I tried using a flour-water dough and a flour-applesauce dough, laminated as for regular puff pastry. The result was crisp at the outside, but uncooked on the inside.
I baked twice as long, and the result were very thick hard crackers. I can see the layers with different color, but there is no air in between the layers.
I’ve also tried only using flour-water dough pastry, folded. Again I can see different colors of the layera, but no air in between.
I haven’t tried making the second dough with egg yolks though. It may interesting to see the result, since egg yolks supposedly have around 63% of fat.
Research
After that failed experiment, I read some articles about the science behind the pastry. It says that the pocket of air is formed because of the boiled water that becomes gas, trapped between the fat layers.
I assume, it happens because the oil and water are not soluble. On the other hand, the boiling point of water is 100 C (212 F), yet the boiling point of oil is around 300 C (572 F). I see here that vodka has a boiling point around 78.3 C, which is lower than water. I haven’t tried vodka for the mixture with flour because vodka actually is also soluble in water.
My question is:
Is there any food grade liquid that has boiling point over 100 C and is not soluble in water?
No. An edible organic liquid that does not dissolve in water, almost by definition, is an oil.
That's not the important thing, though. Substances like mineral oil are edible yet non-nutritive; they pass through the body unchanged and would be compatible with any dietary condition. The problem is that, because they are not digestible and not water-soluble, they, ah... lubricate things. Down there. The amount you'd have to use for puff pastry would cause some real digestive issues.
Bottom line: there are no straightforward non-nutritive substitutes for fats and oils which do not cause diarrhea or loose stools.
Correct answer by Sneftel on August 19, 2021
I have never heard of anybody trying that, but beeswax may fulfill the role butter usually has in puff pastry. According to wikipedia and my own experience, "beeswax is edible, having similar negligible toxicity to plant waxes, and is approved for food use in most countries." This page suggests to use it instead of oil or butter to grease cookie sheets and baking molds. Beeswax is not as malleable as butter though, so I'm not sure whether it can be used like butter to produce the layers in puff pastry dough. (Try perhaps melting it and use a food brush to apply a thin layer, as if applying egg yolk).
Of course the texture of beeswax is more, well, waxy than butter. You certainly don't want too much of it in your cake. Whether the result is at all palatable is up to experimentation! I'd be glad to hear about your results in a later edit.
Answered by Peter - Reinstate Monica on August 19, 2021
One poster has advised (correctly) that it's the water turning into steam between the layers of puff pastry that provides the lift What we need to understand is it's the fat content, in whatever form that takes, which enables that. Fat floats on top of water. Therefore, when the water turns to steam, the fat factor stops it from going through the next layer of pastry, forcing it to rise/lift. You're not going to make puff pastry without a fat aspect. That's what puff pastry is: water, flour, and fat. If you remove the fat aspect, it's the same as completely removing the flour or water. It's simply not going to happen. Try using filo instead, but even in the making of that, fat content is involved. Kind regards, David Crosswell, Master pastry chef.
Answered by user85845 on August 19, 2021
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