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 ↓
Puff Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Sift the flour and set aside some for sprinkling and rolling.
Wash all the salt from the butter and divide it into four parts.
Mix one fourth of the butter with the flour and divide the remaining butter into six pieces.
Use a knife to mix the flour and butter into a stiff dough.
Laminate the dough
Sprinkle flour on a clean surface and flour the rolling pin.
Roll the dough into a thin sheet.
Place small pieces of one sixth of the butter at equal distances on the dough.
Fold the dough over the butter, sprinkle with flour, and roll again.
Repeat the folding and rolling process until all the butter is used.
Shape and bake
Divide the dough into pieces for pies, roll each piece, and place in buttered pans.
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.
-
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Forms flaky layers as it stays solid between sheets of dough and steams during baking.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough sheets together between butter layers.
The step that matters
Folding and rolling until all the butter is used. Butter must stay cold and in distinct layers. If it softens and blends into the dough, the layers won't separate and the pastry won't rise flaky.
“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.
More puff pastry recipes
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.