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Dessert

Soyer's Recipe for Puff-paste

A layered dough made from flour, egg yolk, lemon juice, salt, cold water, and butter, rolled and folded to create puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44,316 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Soyer's Recipe for Puff-paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Put the flour on the paste-board.

  2. Make a hole in the centre.

  3. Into the hole put the yolk of the egg, the lemon juice, and salt.

  4. Mix the whole with cold water into a soft flexible paste, with the right hand, and handle it as little as possible.

Laminate

  1. Squeeze all the buttermilk from the butter, wring it in a cloth.

  2. Roll out the paste.

  3. Place the butter on the paste.

  4. Fold the edges of the paste over, so as to hide the butter.

  5. Roll it out again to a thickness of 1/4 inch.

  6. Fold over one third, passing the rolling-pin over it again.

  7. Fold over the other third, forming a square.

  8. Place it with the ends, top, and bottom before you, shaking a little flour both under and over.

  9. Repeat the rolls and turns twice again, as before.

Chill and finish

  1. Flour a baking-sheet, put the paste on this, and let it remain on ice or in some cool place for 1/2 hour.

  2. Roll twice more, turning it as before.

  3. Place it again upon the ice for 1/4 hour.

  4. Give it 2 more rolls, making 7 in all.

  5. It is ready for use when required.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

90Calories
7 gProtein
5 gFat
4 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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 (in the method)
Forms layers that puff as the water in it turns to steam during baking.
Flour (in the method)
Provides the structure of the paste that holds the layers together.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough into a flexible paste.

The step that matters

Handling the paste. Overworking the dough develops gluten, making it tough and elastic, so it shrinks and does not flake well. Keeping it cold keeps the butter in separate layers that puff.

“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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