Puff pastry

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A palmier

Puff pastry is a light, flaky, unleavened pastry which contains several layers of fat. In raw form it is a dough which is spread with solid fat and repeatedly folded and rolled out.

Puff pastry is similar to the Middle Eastern phyllo. Traditionally it is ascribed to the French painter and cook Claude Gelée who lived in the 17th century. There are references before the 17th century, indicating that puff pastry came through Muslim Spain and was converted from thin sheets of dough spread with olive oil to laminated dough with layers of butter in Italy or Germany.