I is for Ice Tray Puff Pastry

I believe if I tell you from the start that this Pinterest pin is a video with no narration and no written directions, you will have a pretty good idea how the challenge ended.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/
260575528424025745/

I would imagine there are people out there who don't have ice cube trays. We do, because we have a snarky ice maker that withholds ice cubes at will, especially when it knows we are having company. We have replaced the little motor on the back of the fridge 3 times. We could have bought a new ice maker for what that has cost, and that's exactly what we'll do if the little jerk quits again.

But I digress.

In the video, they rolled out a sheet of puff pastry over an empty ice cube tray, pushed the dough down into the individual sections, filled them with stuff, then covered the whole thing with another sheet of puff pastry. After trimming the edges, they flipped the tray over onto a baking sheet and baked it. The pastry came out of the oven all puffy and golden and then they pulled off sections to eat. They gave examples of dessert fillings you could use, but none of those intrigued me. Then they did some savory fillings, and when they got to pizza ingredients, I was in.

I have never used puff pastry before. At over $5.00 at Walmart for a box of two sheets of puff pastry, it's quite likely this was my first and last time to use it. I slightly rolled out the dough and laid it over the ice cube tray (which I sprayed with cooking spray) and poked it into each section. Or tried to. The dough was kind of sproingy and popped right back up. And when I tried to stretch it, my fingernail went through it (many bad words were said at this point). 

I decided to put the ingredients in and hope they would help push the dough down, and they more or less did. I put a little shredded mozzarella in the bottom, followed by chopped pepperoni and topped with a little pizza sauce. When they were all filled, I laid more pastry on top, pressed it down with a rolling pin, and then flipped it over onto a baking sheet. 

It LOOKED like the one in the video.

After sealing the edges with a fork, it went into the oven. And it got puffy and golden like in the video, but it lost a lot of definition. 

Would you know this was made with an ice cube
tray if you didn't know it was made with an ice
cube tray? Because I don't think so.

Then I cut it apart after it cooled a bit, and it was mostly puff pastry, but there wasn't nearly enough filling. How did they get theirs so full on the video? Smoke and mirrors again?

The whole thing squashed flat
when I cut it apart, and the filling
is woefully inadequate.

When I made the second round (and I filled it while the first one was baking, so it didn't have enough guts, either), I cut the sections apart BEFORE I baked it, sealing each one with a fork (can you say "tedious"?), and scattered them on a baking sheet. They came out of the oven looking like puffy pizza rolls without enough filling.

That's a lot of work for 14 pizza rolls.

Did it taste good? Of course! It was pizza ingredients with a high fat crust. What's not good about that?

Was it worth it? Absolutely not! I kept thinking that I could have bought an entire pizza from Little Caeser's Pizza for the money I spent on just the puff pastry, and I could have driven over there, picked it up, and driven it back home again, all hot and cheesy and ready to eat, in the time it took me to roll out the dough and try to get it poked down into the ice cube tray sections.

Moreover, the video was not sufficient as a recipe. At all.

Do yourself a favor. Don't try it. Just go buy a pizza.