Puff pastry is one of those daunting baking tasks that we put off, but there may come a time when you need to use it. So, if you are wondering how long to bake puff pastry for, we’re going to talk you through it.
It’s not nearly as scary as it seems, so let’s take a look.
Store Bought Vs Homemade Puff Pastry
Store bought puff pastry can be either chilled or frozen, either is fine for use in place of homemade puff pastry which can be a little tricky to make for some people.
The process for making your own puff pastry can be labor intensive so using either chilled or frozen puff pastry can be a quick alternative.
Most people would not be able to discern the difference in taste between homemade and store bought puff pastry anyway.
However, the one downside of using store bought chilled or frozen puff pastry is that it often uses vegetable shortening instead of butter.
When you make it at home you would only ever use butter, so there may be a difference in taste to those who know their puff pastry.
Making this pastry yourself is a time consuming task as the pastry needs to be ‘turned’ often, rolled and then chilled for 30 minutes between every two or so ‘turns’.
How Long To Bake Puff Pastry
So, now we know that making puff pastry at home can take a while and buying ready made from the store is the convenient option.
But, we still need to know how long does it take to bake puff pastry?
You should always use a preheated oven to cook puff pastry and the average temperature is around 425° F.
Puff pastry will bake in around 15 minutes, but this will depend on the oven, which may be a normal oven or a convection oven.
Either way keep an eye on your puff pastries and when they turn a golden brown color they should be done.
If your pastry calls for a temperature of 400 °F then you will need to leave it in the oven for around 20 minutes but always keep an eye on it.
There are so many things you can do with puff pastry. You can make delicious tarts, either savory or sweet.
Or you can create tasty appetizers and cute little pastry bites. The list of possibilities is endless for what you can bake with puff pastry.
How long these delicious dishes take to cook will depend on the recipe and on the type of oven that you use. You may have a regular oven or a convection oven.
A regular or conventional oven typically has two heating elements.
The main element is usually in the bottom of the oven and this is perfect for cooking large items such as whole chickens or meat roasts.
Another heating element in the top of the oven creates a more intense heat that is great for cooking casseroles.
These types of oven have evolved over the years but are still basically the same design as the ovens from the 1950s.
Essentially this means the cooking is done from the bottom up as the heat rises from the lower element in the oven.
Cooking puff pastry in a regular oven should take no longer than 15-20 minutes at between 400 °F- 425° F.
Convection Oven
Convection ovens also have their heat source primarily at the bottom of the oven but may also have a second element in the top.
The difference in a convection oven is the presence of one or more fans that push the hot air around the oven.
This convection of hot air creates a more consistent temperature and allows baking and cooking to be more equal across dishes.
With these ovens there are no hot spots so everything cooks evenly.
A convection oven will cook more quickly and will also crisp food more rapidly as the hot air swirls around the interior of the oven.
For baking puff pastry in a convection oven as opposed to in a regular oven you will need to either reduce the amount of time and keep the temperature the same.
Or alternatively, keep the amount of time the same but reduce the temperature.
Recipes For Puff Pastry
There are hundreds of recipes available for using puff pastry but to give you an idea of baking times for different puff pastry dishes we have chosen three.
The dish is baked at 400 °F for 45-55 minutes or until the filling is cooked, and the pastry is golden brown.
This is a dish with a lot of ingredients which all need to be well cooked while the puff pastry also needs to be properly baked and a nice finished color.
A cheese and asparagus tart on puff pastry, this dish requires the pastry to be baked first. The oven temperature is 400 °F, and it takes just 10 minutes.
Afterwards the asparagus and cheese are added to the baked puff pastry and the whole thing is cooked again for another 10-15 minutes.
In Conclusion
We hope you have enjoyed our guide to how long puff pastry takes to bake.
Have you ever made something so delicious that you wished you could savor it forever?
Only to find that the recipe has now mysteriously vanished from your phone and the entirety of the internet. Yep, there’s not much more painful than that.
Hi, my name is Mark Williams and I have been infatuated with cooking since I was young. I would beg my mother to pull a chair up to the counter so I could watch what she was doing.
