One of the building blocks of French cuisine, puff pastry is made from layers upon layers of dough and butter. This beautifully complex, delicate pastry serves as the foundation of many recipes.

Although normally associated with elegant desserts – such as Napoleons and tarts – puff pastry is not sweetened and is therefore also ideal for savory dishes. Beef Wellington (a layer of pate topped with beef tenderloin and Madeira sauce, all enrobed in a flaky puff pastry crust) is only one example. A wheel of creamy Brie cheese sweetened with raspberry preserves and wrapped in a puff pastry bundle makes an appetizer that is as beautiful as it is delicious.

Puff pastry is temperamental and time-intensive. It just-right conditions and ingredients, not to mention a certain degree of expertise on the cook’s part, but it is well worth the effort. (If you are seeking convenience, you can find frozen puff pastry at most supermarkets. They normally come in packs of two sheets and are quite easy to prepare.)

Following a few tips can help ensure good results when you are trying your hand at this French culinary staple:

The ideal work surface is marble, granite, or wood. Some cooks prefer to keep it well chilled throughout the process. One method is to rub it briskly with ice cubes as needed.

When flouring your work surface, be sure to use a light dusting to prevent tough dough caused by too much flour.

Always use butter instead of margarine. Unsalted is best, because salt interferes with the butter’s boiling point, which makes the pastry not rise as quickly. Stick butter is preferred over the tub or whipped varieties. Some recipes will allow for lard or shortening instead of butter.

Holes in your dough will allow the steam to escape, preventing the pastry from puffing. Seal any holes during the folding phase by smoothing and pinching the dough with a bit of flour.

If the dough becomes too sticky to work with as it warms during the fold-and-turn and fold-a-book processes, secure it in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour. You can then start where you left off, doing this as often as you need to make it workable.

The best surface on which to bake puff pastry is a heavy baking sheet brushed with ice water. Do not use nonstick or black-bottomed bakeware; the nonstick will cause distorted pastries, and the black-bottomed will result in burned pastry bottoms.

Brush off any excess flour from the pastry or else it will burn during baking.

Pastry will shrink during baking, so always cut it one inch larger than the size you want to end up with.

If your puff pastry does not rise enough during baking, it may be because your oven is not hot enough. Since steam is what puffs up the pastry, the oven needs to be very hot; it should be about 425 degrees, and certainly not below 375 degrees.

Inadequate rising may also be caused by layers squishing together and forming seals that are too compressed to allow for puffing up. The layers need to be unstuck from one another, so use caution when cutting them into shapes before baking. For the same reason, keep any egg or milk wash you may use from the pastry’s sides, or else it will stick them together.

To store puff pastry, wrap it tightly and refrigerate. It should be used within one day, although it will last for several days.

You can freeze and refreeze puff pastry dough twice without the process causing any damage to its quality or ability to rise. Experts recommend baking frozen pastry dough fresh from the freezer. It can be frozen for several months.

Here is the recipe for a basic puff pastry, based on Julia Child’s Pate Feuilletee. It will require about four hours from first step to last.

Basic Puff Pastry Recipe

For La Detrempe (the base dough):
2¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
¾ cup cake flour
2 teaspoons salt
½ stick (¼ cup) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces
½ teaspoon lemon juice, chilled
Up to 1 cup ice water

For the butter block:
3½ sticks (1¾ cups) unsalted butter, chilled

To prepare La Detrempe:
Sift flours together twice. Set aside ½ cup of the mixture and reserve for the butter block.
Add salt to the remaining 3 cups flour mixture and pour into food processor fitted with a steel blade.
Add ½ stick (¼ cup) butter, pulsing to incorporate with flour mixture until it resembles rolled oats.
Keep machine running as you pour lemon juice and ice water through feed tube. Start with ¼ cup of water so that you do not use any more than is needed to form a stiff but pliable dough. Scrape sides of processor bowl as needed.
Turn dough out onto lightly floured, chilled work surface. Gather and lightly knead it into a rough ball. Move it to the side as you prepare your butter block.

To prepare butter block:
Set 3 ½ sticks butter on the work surface. Beating it with a rolling pin and applying pressure with the heels of your hands, soften it into a dough-like mass.
Work in the reserved ½ cup flour mixture until smooth. Scoop it into a glob at the edge of your work surface.

To create the layered pastry dough:
Lightly flour clean work surface.
Use your hands to shape the dough into a rectangle of approximately 16 by 8 inches.
Spread the butter glob over the first two-thirds of the dough rectangle. Leave ½ inch unbuttered all the way around.
Now you are ready to begin the layering of dough and butter.

Turn One: The fold-and-turn step:
Fold the unbuttered third over the center third of the rectangle.
Fold the buttered third top down to cover it.
(This folding process resembles how you might fold a letter into thirds to fit into an envelope.)
Turn the folded rectangle (which now has 3 layers of dough and 2 layers of butter on top of one another) one-quarter rotation.
Roll the rectangle out to about 18 by 10 inches.
Now you will fold it into a book shape as follows.

Turn Two: The fold-a-book step:
Fold the two shorter edges to meet each other in the middle. Imagining that the inside center is the very center of a book (and the center on the back side of it is the spine of the book), fold the rectangle in half with the “spine” facing left and the “opening” facing right.
Use your finger to poke two dents in the top of the book to remind yourself that you’ve turned the dough twice.
Secure the “book” in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 40 minutes. (At this point, you can refrigerate the dough overnight.)

Turns Three and Four
Remove the dough from the refrigerator. It needs to be soft enough not to break while you work it. If you suspect it needs softening, beat it with your hands until you feel it is soft enough.
Repeat both the fold-and-turn and fold-a-book steps. Use your finger to poke four dents in the top of the book to remind yourself that you’ve turned the dough four times.
Secure in plastic wrap and refrigerate.

At this point, you can use the dough in recipes or freeze it for future use. If you are going to use it, you need to refrigerate for two hours before using it.

If you are making this dough for recipes that require a lighter pastry, then you will need to turn it again. If you are going to turn it again, you only need to refrigerate it for one hour.

Turns Five and Six
Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Repeat exactly what you did in “Turns Three and Four” with the exception of poking four dents – because now you’ve turned it six times.
Secure in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours.

After the final cooling and resting period, your puff pastry dough is ready to use.