In Spain, likely built upon Arab or Moorish culinary traditions, the first known recipe for pastry using butter or lard following the Arab technique of making each layer separately, appears in the Spanish recipe book Libro del arte de cozina ('book on the art of cooking') by Domingo Hernández de Maceras, published in 1607.

Francisco Martínez Motiño, head chef to Philip II of Spain (1527–1598),[2] also gave several recipes of puff pastry in his Arte de cocina, pastelería, bizcochería y conservería published in 1611.

[4] The oldest known documented recipe for puff pastry in France was included in a charter by Robert, bishop of Amiens in 1311.

[5] The first recipe to explicitly use the technique of tourage (the action of encasing solid butter within dough layers, keeping the fat intact and separate, by folding several times) was published in 1651 by François Pierre La Varenne in Le cuisinier français.

[6][7] Modern French puff pastry was then developed and improved by the chef M. Feuillet and Antonin Carême.

[8][9][10] The method is sometimes considered the idea of the famous painter Claude Gellée when he was an apprentice baker in 1612.

Before re-rolling, the dough is rotated ninety degrees, so that it is rolled at right angle relative to the previous "turn" (as each step is usually referred to).

Common types of fat used include butter, vegetable shortenings, lard and margarine.

Specialized margarine formulated for high plasticity (the ability to spread very thin without breaking apart) is used for industrial production of puff pastry.

Alternatively, or in addition, the butter is scattered over the dough-layer surface in small pieces, or grated, rather than in a single mass or block.

Les fleurons de feuilletage s'employaient déjà au XVe siècle à la cour du grand-duc de Toscane, pour orner les apprêts d'épinards.

Le peintre Claude Gellée, dit le Lorrain (1600–1682), qui avait débuté comme apprenti pâtissier, passa longtemps pour l'« inventeur » – de la pâte feuilletée.

Cette paternité lui fut disputée par un certain Feuillet, au nom prédestiné, pâtissier du prince de Condé, dont Antonin Carême parle élogieusement dans son Pâtissier royal." [...