Prepare the butter slab aka the beurrage: When you've got 2 sticks at just above room temperature, flatten it into a square about 4 x 4 inches. You can do this with your wooden rolling pin. Put it back in the frig for 30 minutes.

Prepare the detrempe. The detrempe is the dough portion made of flour, water and a small amount of butter. To make it, put the sifted flour and salt in a bowl and mix with a fork. Then dump the flour on your cold marble work area and make a well in the middle with your fingers. Start adding the iced water and with your fingers incorporate the water into the flour until you have a shaggy ball. This will not be a pretty dough - and don't be tempted to make it into one. You do NOT want to knead this dough because if you do, you will have a tough pastry. Use your dough scraper to bring it together in a rough lumpy ball then wrap it loosely in some Saran wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Take your beurrage and detrempe out of the frig. Flour your rolling pin and dust your work surface with flour. Roll out the detrempe so that you have a 5 x 6 inch square with longer flaps on four sides. Put the butter in the middle and enclose the butter with the dough flaps and press it all into a somewhat neat square shaped packed, with the butter enclosed. This should be about a 5 x 5 or 5 x 6 inch butter enclosed package, called a paton.

Take your rolling pin and pat the paton a few times to even it up on all sides. Now you are ready to roll! Roll the paton out to a strip that is about 5 inches wide and 16 to 18 inches long. You want to keep it about 1/2 inch thick if you can.

A word about your rolling technique. Start at the middle of the paton and roll upward in one long stroke. Then, come back to the middle and roll down. Don't roll side to side. Don't widen the paton. Don't roll back and forth. You want that butter to move parallel to the work surface in one sheet.

Keep your dough and rolling pin floured. But when you get ready to fold the dough, take your pastry brush and brush off excess flour.

You're ready to do the first fold. Bring the lower third of the dough up to the middle of the strip. Then fold the top third over the bottom third. Fold it like you're folding a letter. Then -- pretend your paton is a book -- and turn it so the pages are on the right. Every time you start to roll out your paton, the book spine is on the left and the pages are on the right.

Roll the paton out again, flouring when necessary to keep the butter from peeking through, then brushing the excess flour off before folding. Fold for the second time; rotate your book pages to the right. Wrap in Saran wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

Remove from frig. Make two more "turns."

After the fourth turn, make a half turn. To do this, just fold the paton over once, bringing the edges together, instead of the letter fold. Put the paton back into the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Two more turns, then back in the frig for 24 hours.

Now you can roll out your puff pastry into a thin sheet about 1/4 inch thick.

To bake off your pastry: Cut into desired shapes. Flip the dough over onto a sheet of parchment on a cookie sheet. It will rise better that way. Place in a pre-heated 425 degree oven and watch for initial rise. It will puff up incredibly in the first ten minutes. Then, turn down the over to 400 degrees or 375 degrees depending on your recipe.