Airy, Flaky Pastry

Appears in
Mouthfeel: How Texture Makes Taste
Mouthfeel

By Ole Mouritsen and Klavs Styrbæk

Published 2017

  • About

There is a whole assortment of pastries that are characterized by their airy, flaky texture. This creates a very special mouthfeel, due to the combination of individual flakes that are very thin, crisp, and hard and the interspersed layers of air that introduce a soft and supple feel. They are made from a type of dough, sometimes referred to as feuilleté, or puff pastry, which has a high fat content, typically about 35 percent.

Croissants, Danish pastries, and the French mille-feuille, the name of which means “a thousand leaves,” are classic examples of this family of flaky and laminated baked goods. In contrast to mille-feuille, whose flakiness is derived from butter, the dough for croissants and Danish pastries also includes eggs, sugar, and leavening agents, with the result that they are softer and the flakes are less crisp.