Playing with desserts is going to get my waistline in trouble if I’m not careful! I had made extra tartlet shells for this weekend’s plum and blackberry tart, had made more mascarpone than I needed, and, had leftover blackberries. How could I not combine them and fill the tartlet shell with the latter two ingredients. How could I not then eat it?

On to pastry class numero cuatro, the start of masa hojaldre, puff pastry dough.

And, indeed, really the start. I’ve never used egg in making puff pastry, so was surprised when he cracked one into the mix – and he noted that it’s not a necessary component, but that it adds a touch of color and tenderness to the dough. We were also using margarine rather than butter, an ingredient I’m not fond of, but, it does allow you to keep the dough out and work with it over time, whereas if you use butter, you have to keep refrigerating the dough after every “turn” or two or the butter melts and soaks into the flour rather than creating layers.

And layers are what we want – here’s the dough after five turns (rolling it out and then folding it), ready to be rolled out for use.

And margarine and egg or no, it’s really hard to argue with results like this – a persiana…

…or these amazingly light and delicate palmitas, though I will say that in this case, the flavor is noticeably different from when using butter, pretty much all you taste is the dough and sugar, without that buttery richness. So for home use, I’ll be sticking with butter – I’m not having to deal with a dozen dough batches being lined up in the refrigerator every 10 minutes, so it’s much easier to do… or we shall see this Sunday’s dinner when I give a shot with this technique for making it for our tomato tarte tatins….