Once you have puff pastry in hand you have an essential element for making spectacular looking pastries and appetizers with a minimum of fuss. There are two methods for obtaining puff pastry.
Method One: Make a one-pound batch of pie dough-type pastry with a mixture of pastry and unbleached flour which has been stored in the freezer overnight. (Store your 20-pound marble slab and the flour together so they’ll be easy to find.) Beat one pound of French, unsalted butter with the lowest water content possible into a rough rectangle and place it on top of the pie dough mixture which has also rolled into a rectangle. Roll the two together into an 18 by 10 rectangle and then fold the rectangle into thirds, like a letter and refrigerate for an hour to relax the gluten. Do this roll and fold and chill procedure 6 more times until you have 729 layers of butter sandwiched between 730 layers of dough. Chill until ready to use.
Method Two: Drive down to the grocery store and pull a one pound box of puff pastry out of the freezer. Defrost for 40 minutes.
Either method will give you a dough which will rise 10 times its original thickness when baked, will be impossibly light and crunchy due to all the butter layers and will look spectacular no matter what other ingredients you wish it to carry.
One of my favorite ways to use puff pastry is in a fresh strawberry tart which is composed of a rectangular pastry shell, filled with bananas and almond pastry cream and glazed with currant jelly and sliced almonds.
The first step is to make the pastry cream because it takes about 4 or 5 hours for the cream to chill completely and set up

Puff Pastry

Almond Pastry Cream
1 1/2 cups whole milk
4 TB flour
6 TB sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold milk
4 egg yolks, slightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

Put the 11/2 cups whole milk in a one quart Pyrex measuring cup and heat in the microwave until it is just shy of boiling and has formed a thin film on top. Set aside.

In a heavy saucepan, combine the flour, sugar and salt. Add the cold milk and stir until smooth. Remove the scald film from the top of the heated milk and slowly add to saucepan. Put the pan over medium heat and bring to a boil and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring or whisking constantly. Put the beaten egg yolks into the top of a double boiler and gradually add 3 to 4 TBS of the hot milk mixture. Gradually add the rest of the hot milk. Put the boiler top over simmering water and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove boiler top and add extracts. Cover mixture with plastic wrap pressed directly onto the cream top and chill until completely cold and thick.

Pastry Shell
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take one sheet of the pastry and place on a lightly floured board and roll into a 14 by 11 rectangle. Place this sheet on a rimless cookie sheet. Roll the second sheet of dough to 14 inches in length and cut 8 strips 1/2 to 3/4 inch wide. Brush the outer frame of the full sheet with water and lay one layer of strips around the edge to make a rim to hold the filling.

Brush the rim strips with water and lay a second layer of strips atop the first. Trim the end to fit and prick with a fork to glue the strips together. Prick the middle of the sheet with a fork to allow steam to escape. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until brown.

Assembly
2 ripe bananas
2 lb strawberries, cut in half lengthwise
1 cup blueberries
1/2 cup currant jelly
2 TB Chambord or Cointreau
1/4 cup sliced almonds

Slice the bananas into coins and cover the bottom of the tart. Cover with the chilled pastry cream. Arrange the strawberries over the cream in rows and scatter blueberries on top. Melt the jelly in the microwave until liquid and stir in the liquor. Paint the berries with the glaze and top with a sprinkling of almonds. Chill.
Do the assembly as close to serving time as possible so the pastry stays crisp.