I buy, but I don't buy the nasty stuff featured above. Pepperidge Farm is gross tasting and for god's sake it NON DAIRY. It is NOT puff pastry. It is flavorless crunch, like the pastry department from a chain supermarket.

For real puff pastry you need a brand like Dufour which is much, much more expensive.

Making it at home is time consuming, sure, but it's not that hard! You just have to be gentle. And a lot of the time is passive, since it's in the fridge chilling and relaxing, so you can easily go poke around with other projects.

Make! I always make! Puff pastry gets such a bad rep as being hard to make but it's SO not! And it tastes and just looks so much better homemade.

I especially like making it in winter- I do a fold, wrap it up and put it on the back porch to chill! Great for Christmas lol.

agree w/Judi..Dufour is amazing and worth the $11 it costs at Whole Foods.

Also, when you make a batch yourself its always way more than you'd need in one sitting. I roll the leftovers into sheets and wrap well then stash in my freezer. At the drop of a hat, I have homemade puff pastry when I need it.

I make my own, but not "real" puff, rather, I use one of the "quick" puff recipes--which are not quite so labor intensive (food processor, hurah!) and usually make a big enough batch that you can freeze 3/4 of it for later, so once you put in the intial 10-15 minutes it's almost like storebought. It took one look at dufour's price to ensure I'd be making it at home (and agree with the first commenter about pepperidge farms). I should pull out some puff tonight, in fact to defrost for tomorrow's dinner!

I've been making my own . . . lack of suitable pre-made options in our rural area drove me to making my own, but, really, it's not hard and even if better brands suddenly became available in my area, I'd likely continue making it myself.

The Pepperidge Farm stuff has a chemicaly taste I find which I really dislike. I love the frozen puff pastry from Trader Joes - made with real butter! And pretty cheap.

I buy mine, but it has to be made with butter. Store-bought puff pastry made with margarine is not nice.

I find that for most recipes, unless you really need a lot of height, a blitz puff pastry will do the trick. It's not much more difficult to make that pie dough and I've always had lovely results. On very hot days (no AC in my house) or if I'm making something really last minute I'll get some from Trader Joe's.

I'd love to try to make some...sometime. but the pepperedge farm variety has an advantage that home-made does not. it is non dairy, and thus can be used with meat, if you keep kosher, like we do, this is a HUGE advantage.

The best puff pastry I've came across in terms of quality (all butter) and price is Trader Joe's Artisan pate feuillettee. It's delicious and tastes like homemade. The only down side is that it's available in-stores only from now until March or April.

Buy. The Pepperedge Farm brand is vegan and that's why we buy it.

Make it at home and freeze it.

I will have to buy Trader Joes. I actually hadn't ever seen it before.

I don't make it, I do buy it. One of the very few things that I will do that for. I am a mainly from scratch kind of person. didn't know about the quick puff so i will try that some time as well and maybe be a full time convert.

In Switzerland, they have excellent rolls of different types of pastry dough in the refrigerator section, including puff pastry.

Excellent, because every is all-butter and all-natural.

Why can't we have that in North America??

It was so easy to make a clazone for dinner, or chicken pie, or beef stew with puff pastry...

err, excellent because every dough is all butter...

I have an easy recipe that is made in the food processor. 10 minutes of work and you're done and it's amazingly good and puffs up quite nicely. So, I make it (and freeze it) all the time.

I refuse to buy the Pepperidge Farm stuff because of all of the unpronounceable. But as a vegetarian who is trying to be vegan as much as possible I prefer to make it than buy the butter filled, uber expensive Dufour brand. Its not that hard really and I know whats in it!

I like the puff pastry at Trader Joe's. All natural, recognizable ingredients and it's frozen in flat sheets. Thaws much quicker than the folded brands and no cracks.

Astur...in my Joe's it's always in the pie and dessert frozen section. Look for a skinny flat box.

Though I almost always come down on the side of make, for me so far puff pastry is in the buy category.

I've never successfully made puff pastry; apparently my hands are too hot. Even when making simpler pastry crusts (which I do frequently and well), I spend more time chilling the ingredients and the in-process dough (and, in hot weather, even chilling my hands) than in actual hands-on work. Puff pastry turns to mush in my hands.

I've made it and I've bought it - but mostly I try to not use it. Too much butter!

I've never made it, but now I'm inspired to try!

BUY. Time consuming and easy to mess up. No thanks. I've only used it once in my whole life anyway. If I used it a lot, maybe it'd be worth learning how to do it, but... no.

Could someone share a link for a reliable quick puff recipe?

I use this recipe all the time:

Quick Puff Pastry
2 ¼ cups flour (bread flour is great for this, but all-purpose works too)
1 ¼ c unsalted butter (if using salted butter, omit salt) cut into ½” cubes
½ tsp salt
6 T cold water

- Put flour in mixing bowl, add the cubes of butter. Toss to coat.
- Dissolve salt in water. Pour over flour and butter and mix with a spoon or hands until it comes together as a dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead 10 times. Form the dough into a square before completing 3 double turns.
For each double turn:
- Roll the dough into a long and narrow rectangle about ½” thick. Arrange the rectangle so the long side is closest to you
- Make a mark in the center of the long side of the rectangle. Fold both ends of the dough in to the center.
- Brush excess flour from the top of the dough and fold once more as if you were closing a book.
When you begin the second double turn, place the dough in front of you so that the short ends of the rectangle are on your left and right, 90 degrees from the way the dough lay when you “closed the book” with the first turn.
After you've done this 3 times, roll it out to ½”, wrap in cling film and store in the freezer or refrigerator. Thaw in refrigerator before using.

It actually doesn't take 6 turns. 4-5 will do. It takes even fewer turns if you do your turns a certain type of way (wallet-type turn).

I'm trying to recall the name of the puff pastry that i have bought at Gourmet Garage in the past. It's $12 for one sheet, but my god is it delicious.

You know what... It's absolutely Dufour which everyone else is raving about.

So... am I the only one here who isn't a huge fan of puff pastry? Lol. Except in baklava. Everything else is just kind of "eh." Pie or tart crust is just as versatile.

Of course, I've never tried Dufour or knowingly tried homemade (unless that's why I love baklava from teeny ethnic restaurants so much), but unless the good stuff is so good each layer virtually melts in your mouth, it's not my favorite vehicle for delivering deliciousness. I'd rather have the cornmeal pastry dough my favorite bakery uses on their pear galettes.

@vintagejenta - Baklava is made using philo/filo pastry, not puff pastry.

I buy it because it's a very occasional treat for us (not exactly health food). No Trader Joe's or Whole Foods around here, so Pillsbury is the only brand that's available.

Buy the Trader Joe's stuff.

Store-bought isn't so bad... I cant remember why I bought it that one time but I was actually kind of impressed with it.

making puff at home isn't really difficult, just takes a bit of muscle and definitely refrigerator space. And a lot of time. Unless you are making blitz puff (which requires much less rolling because it starts out like a pie dough).