Puff pastry is a light, flaky dough made by folding butter into layers of dough over and over again. When you bake it, the butter creates steam that pushes the layers apart, making the pastry puff up into hundreds of crispy, delicate sheets. If you've ever eaten a fancy fruit tart or those rectangular pastries called napoleons, you've tasted puff pastry.

Making puff pastry from scratch requires patience and skill. A baker starts with a simple dough, then wraps it around a thick slab of butter. They roll it out, fold it like a letter, chill it, and repeat this process several times. Each fold creates more layers. By the end, a single sheet of puff pastry might contain over a thousand paper-thin layers of dough and butter.

Professional bakers take pride in their puff pastry skills because it requires both precision and practice. Most home cooks buy it frozen from the grocery store, which works perfectly well for making pot pies, cheese straws, or desserts. When baked properly, puff pastry turns golden brown and shatters into flakes at the first bite.