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
Prepare the dough
Sift the flour into a bowl.
Cut the butter and lard into the flour until the mixture resembles small bits.
Sprinkle the ice water over the mixture and mix lightly with a knife.
Laminate
Flour a surface 24 inches long by 18 inches wide.
Place the dough in the center, flour the rolling pin, and roll the dough to cover the flour.
Sift a light coating of flour over the dough, then fold it in thirds lengthwise and across.
Turn the dough over, add more flour underneath, and roll it out again.
Sift with flour, fold, and roll out a third time.
Sift again, roll lightly into a scroll, cut in half, and place on a plate.
Chill in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes before use.
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
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Cold solid fat that forms layers, which steam apart in the oven to make the pastry flaky.
- Lard
- Cold solid fat that forms separate layers of dough, adding flakiness and tenderness.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the layers together as the dough is rolled and folded.
- Ice water
- Hydrates the flour to form a dough while keeping the fat cold and solid.
The step that matters
Keep the fat cold and in pieces. If the butter and lard soften or melt into the flour, the fat blends in instead of forming layers, so the pastry loses its flakiness. Keeping the dough chilled between rolls preserves the separate layers.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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