Flaky and buttery puff pastry is delicious with sweet or savoury fillings. Recently, a food hack regarding puff pastry has gone viral on social media sites like Instagram. Originally started by food content creator, Lily Ghodrati (@lilyghodrati) on Tiktok, the hack involves placing a sheet of puff pastry directly over different fillings like fresh fruit, vegetables, honey, and cheese. The recipe found its way over to her Instagram account, @lilygbakes, in April of this year, getting more than 10 lakh views. Soon, bakers, cooks, and other content creators were creating their own versions using the hack.
Traditionally, puff pastry can be hard to make at home. As per a BBC GoodFood recipe, it requires rolling the dough at least six times, while adding butter, which creates layers in the dough. This causes the pastry to puff up when baked. The process is also time-consuming as the dough and butter need to be chilled throughout. Therefore, the food content creators propagating this trend on social media recommend store-bought puff pastries, which can easily be bought online.
While making normal puff pastries, two sheets of dough are crimped together over a topping. An article by the BBC Science Focus magazine in 2015 explains that adding overly wet fillings leads to soggy pastries. However, with this hack, the pastry comes out crisp every time. Cooking the tarts upside down also allows the bottom to caramelize due to the steam, coating the toppings with a thin glaze. Furthermore, the snack comes together quickly as it requires little preparation. Without the hassle of making puff pastry from scratch and with guaranteed success every time, the hack caters to beginners and amateur cooks.
Part of the fun is how customizable it is, with a variety of fillings that can be put into the pastry. For example, Shivangi Pithisaria (@shivangipithisaria), a food content creator on Instagram with over 27,000 followers, has created an upside down puff pastry with all the toppings of a pizza, demonstrating the versatility of this trick.
Take a look at this video to get inspiration for your next upside down puff pastry creation.
