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Paste Puff for Tarts, Etc

Paste Puff is a short pastry dough made from flour, butter, baking powder, and water, used for tarts and similar pastries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Gillmore, Maria McIlvaine, b. 1871 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 23 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and 81,283 recipes mention both. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Paste Puff for Tarts, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flour

  1. Take one pound of flour and one pound of butter.

  2. Add one teaspoon of baking powder.

  3. Take three ounces of flour from the pound for working the paste, and put the remainder in a bowl, mixing it well with the baking powder.

Laminate the paste

  1. Divide the butter into four portions.

  2. Rub one portion of butter into the flour, and mix with as much water as will make a smooth paste.

  3. Roll the paste to a thickness of a shilling (about one inch).

  4. Break up the remaining butter into bits the size of a hazelnut, lay them over the paste, leaving a margin of an inch.

  5. Dredge lightly with some of the flour taken out for working.

  6. Fold the paste into four, and roll it out again.

  7. Repeat the previous steps with the third and fourth portions of butter, rolling to a thickness of a shilling each time.

  8. When all butter has been used, fold the paste into three, then fold it once again lengthwise.

Rest and store

  1. Lay the paste in a deep dish, cover closely, and let it stand in a cool place for at least twelve hours.

  2. The paste will keep two or three days without baking unless the weather is very hot.

Make tartlets

  1. When making tartlets, keep the grain orientation; cuttings placed flat, one on top of another, and rolled out will be light and flaky.

By Gillmore, Maria McIlvaine, b. 1871. 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Flour + oniontop 17% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the thin layers of paste together when rolled.
Butter
Separates the dough into layers that lift and become flaky as the fat melts in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the layered paste rises and puffs.

The step that matters

Rolling and folding with the butter portions. Butter must stay in distinct pieces between dough layers. If it softens or smears into the dough, the layers merge and the paste bakes dense instead of flaky.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, butter):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Arrowrootbetter flavor fit
  3. Leekbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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