Ginger Infused Puff Pastry, with Pastry Cream, and Spiced Persimon Jam

Roughly a dozen- hour active cook time - two hour chill and baking time

YIPEE! Heres my recipe for a soooo super yummy pastry I made with the persimon jam! the cream ballences out the jam spice perfectly, with really awesome texture from the dough.

Jam:
• Persimon jam, recipe on the left.

Pastry Cream
• 2 cups of whole milk
• 4oz, or 1/2 cup of sugar
• 4oz, or 3 tablespoons cornstartch
• A pinch of salt
• 4 egg yolks
• 1oz, or 2 tablespoons of butter

Puff Pastry-
• 8oz, or 2 Sticks of butter
• Fresh Ginger
• cardamom, whole prefered, powdered fine.
• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 6 Tablespoons of water


• We begin with prepping our puff pastry butter, beacuse it needs ample time to chill in the fridge before the next steps. Begin with shredding the ginger and adding the cardamom to a small pot, add the butter and keep on a low heat, careful not to cook it at all. let simmer for about 10 mins, stiring and being sure to not let it get too hot, and then strain. Pour the butter into a bowl lined with a plastic wrap or wrap of your choice and return to the fridge to chill.
• During this time, prepare the jam, if using homemade jam.
• Once butter is chilled and solidified, start prepping the flour, sugar, and salt. Mix together in a mixing bowl. Slowly start adding cool water while mixing untill a dough forms, mixing throughly between spoonfuls. dough should not be too sticky. Get butter and shape into a square shape. about 5 inches by 5 inches. Roll out your dough, and place your butter square in the middle of it. fold the ends of the dough over the butter like an envelope. Wrap and chill for about 10 mins
• Once chilled, roll out yout dough with the butter inside. Being careful not to crack and shred the butter square, we want it to roll out smoothly like the dough. Some cracking is fine though, its been pretty unavoidable in my experience. Once rolled out into a thin sheet, fold into thirds again and chill. repeat, and wrap and chill again.
• The goal here is to get a total of 7 folds in our sheet. However, when the dough gets warm, the butter doesnt, and the difference in texture makes for a difficult time rolling and folding them as one. Additionally, Warmer and room tempature dough will not roll out well, often shrinking back into a smaller rounder shape. So chilling for 10 mins in between every fold or two is a must. Additionally, if it feels nessesary, a small amount of a fat (such as a little bit more butter) can be spread on the dough between folds to keep the seperation between layers more defined, but more than 50% fat content in a puff pastry makes it flatter.
• Once folded, heat oven to 425. Cut your final rolled out sheets into square shapes (sizes up to you!) and place on baking sheet, and bake for 10 mins, keeping a close eye on them. Depending on your fat content they may need a little bit longer.
• For the Pastry cream, combine the cornstarch, salt, sugar, and egg yolks in a bowl. Seperatly, heat your milk on the stove on a mediunm heat annd bring to a simmer. Once your milk is hot, slowwwwllyyy start pouring it into your egg mixture while whisking constantly. we want to taper it slowly to prevent our egg yolks from cooking. Keep whisking this whole time. Once tempered, return the whole mixture to the stove. We want to cook it over a meadium high heat untill it begins to thicken. This step is super important becasue it gets us our desired texture, and will keep a certain protien in egg yolks from neutralizing our starch.
• Remove your pastries from the oven, top with cooled pastry cream, and a layer of jam. ENJOYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!