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Dessert

Sweet Pastry Dough

A sweet dough made with butter, sugar, eggs, water, ammonia, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Sweet Pastry Dough

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the butter and sugar until creamy.

  2. Add the eggs and water, and mix until well combined.

  3. Stir in the ammonia and flour gradually until a dough forms.

  4. Knead the dough lightly until smooth, then use as needed.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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
Adds fat and richness, and helps make the pastry tender and flaky.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps give the dough a light texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once hydrated and worked.
Ammonia
Acts as a leavening agent, helping the dough rise and become lighter.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour gradually. Adding flour gradually and mixing only until a dough forms keeps the dough from becoming overworked. Too much gluten development makes pastry tough, so the flour should be incorporated with restraint.

“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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