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Dessert

Plain Pastry

A simple pastry dough made from flour, salt, sugar, butter, and ice water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plain Pastry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Sift together the flour, salt, and sugar.

  2. Cut in the butter or fat using a knife until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  3. Mix lightly with ice water until the dough comes together.

Chill the dough

  1. Fold the dough, then chill it in the refrigerator before using.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the pastry together when baked.
Butter or fat
Coats flour particles and creates tenderness and flaky layers as it stays in pieces.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness and helps the pastry brown.
Ice water
Provides the moisture that binds the dough while keeping the fat cold and firm.

The step that matters

Cut in the butter or fat until coarse crumbs. Fat should stay in small, cold pieces. Overworking it blends the fat into the flour, which makes the pastry tough instead of tender and 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.

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