Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Puff Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Sift the flour into a large bowl, reserving 2.5 ounces for later.
Shape the butter into a ball and divide it into four equal parts.
Cut one piece of butter into small pieces and add it to the flour.
Gradually add a little cold water to the flour mixture, mixing with a knife until it forms a lump.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll it out thinly with a floured rolling pin.
Cut the second piece of butter into small bits and distribute it evenly over the rolled-out dough.
Sprinkle with flour, fold the dough, and roll it out again.
Repeat with the third piece of butter, adding it in small bits, sprinkling with flour, and folding.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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