Laminated dough

Laminated dough is a culinary preparation consisting of many thin layers of dough separated by butter or other solid fat, produced by repeated folding and rolling. Such doughs may contain more than eighty layers. During baking, water in the butter vaporizes and expands, causing the dough to puff up and separate, while the lipids in the butter essentially fry the dough, resulting in a light, flaky product.

Pastries using laminated doughs include:

• Croissant pastry, from France
• Danish pastry, made with yeast-leavened dough, from Austria via Denmark
• Flaky pastry
• Jachnun, a Yemenite Jewish pastry
• Kouign-amann, a sweet Breton cake from north-western France
• Kubaneh, a traditional Yemenite Jewish bread
• Malawach, a Yemenite Jewish flatbread
• Paratha, a flatbread native to South Asia
• M'semen, a traditional flatbread of northern Africa
• Puff pastry