This week is particularly busy, and my friends and I have been working for several days at nine or ten o'clock in the evening. By Friday, the whole person was groggy and unable to lift his spirits. However, an unexpected surprise broke the tension and dullness in the office: the department leader saw that we needed both spiritual and material encouragement and specially bought afternoon tea. Everyone had a cup of milk tea and a large box of butterfly puff pastry.
To be honest, I've been coping with three meals this week, and desserts and snacks are far away from me. Pick up the butterfly puff pastry from the box and take a bite out of it. The melaleuca puff pastry melts in the mouth, and the sweetness and butter aroma of the large granulated sugar grain rubbing between the teeth seem to be instantly transformed into infinite energy, making my taste lost in the jungle of happiness.
The first time I saw the beauty of butterfly puff pastry was a few years ago. Every time my aunt came to Beijing from Shanghai on a business trip, she would bring me Shanghai specialties and snacks: from white rabbit milk candy to spiced beans, from autumn pear paste to peanut rolling, it seems to be a history of the development of Haipai snacks. But that time, my aunt brought a large box of Swiss cookies and a large bag of butterfly puff pastry. Mom asked her aunt, "What are you carrying these things for?" The aunt said that these two things are bought in international hotels, which are very fashionable in Shanghai, and the people who buy them every day have to queue up in long lines.
My aunt has always spoken very realistically, and the good things she says are never mixed with water. I saw butterfly puff pastry wrapped in cellophane, golden and oily, with crystalline granulated sugar grains hanging from it. The dough is rolled outward from the middle into butterfly wings, which is very beautiful. I untied the ribbon at the top of the bag, and a scent of butter rushed out. Take one in your mouth, the feeling of oil puff pastry is very wonderful, if you describe it according to the standards of professional gourmets, butterfly puff pastry has both a thousand layers of crispy chinese puff pastry, and a butter wheat aroma of Western desserts, plus elegant and pleasing shapes, it is no wonder that it can become a new generation of Shanghai specialties.
To say that the popularity of this butterfly crisp Shanghai International Hotel in Shanghai is not low, the hotel's cake house, is always foreign tourists and local aunts crowded together, everyone is for the same goal: butterfly crisp. Shanghai has the reputation of the Paris of the East, and as early as the first half of the last century, butterfly crisps have been introduced to Shanghai. In addition to the International Hotel, the "Kaisling" in Jing'an District and the butterfly crisp produced by the famous Shanghai Harbin Food Factory have also become unforgettable highlights in the lives of generations.
As for how the butterfly puff pastry was invented in France, where it was born, it is now more accepted that the butterfly puff pastry is the scrap of the French mille-feuille puff pastry. When making French mille-feuille puff pastry, there are many broken strips because they are cut a lot of edges. In order not to waste, skilled French chefs roll out these puff pastries into long thin slices, roll them from the sides to the middle, cut into slices, sprinkle with granulated sugar, and bake them in the oven. The fancy butterfly puff pastry is ready.
Because puff pastry is a dim sum method shared by both Chinese and Western food cultures, butterfly puff pastry does not require fermentation, does not have too much cream, and the production process is relatively simple, and it quickly took root in China. Place the cut puff pastry rolls neatly on a baking sheet and put them in the oven and watch them slowly swell up like butterflies with outstretched wings. Freshly baked butterfly pastry is golden in color, and the semi-melted granulated sugar granules glow with tan light. In large and small bakeries, you can smell the butter and milk of butterfly crisp from afar, and few people can resist such a temptation.
While many pastries are best eaten when they are first baked, the best time to enjoy butterfly puff pastry is after an hour. During the gradual cooling, butter and sugar will make the mille-feuille puff pastry more crunchy. Take a bite and it will definitely be unforgettable.