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Dessert

Rough Puff Pastry

A flaky pastry dough made with flour, shortening, salt, lemon juice, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,404 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rough Puff Pastry

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

  2. Cut the shortening into 4 pieces and add to the flour.

  3. Make a well in the center of the flour.

  4. Add lemon juice to the cold water and mix until elastic.

  5. Turn the mixture onto a floured board and work it a little.

Laminate and bake

  1. Roll out into a long strip, flour lightly, fold in three, and roll out again.

  2. Repeat the flouring and folding process, rolling out a third time, and a fourth if necessary.

  3. Use for sweet and savory dishes, and bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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 + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the layers together.
Shortening
Creates separate fat layers that steam apart in the oven, producing flakiness.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour to develop gluten, giving the dough its elasticity.

The step that matters

Keeping the shortening cold and in distinct pieces. If the fat softens or blends fully into the flour, it will not form separate layers. Steam released from the water in the fat then cannot lift the dough, and the pastry turns out dense instead of 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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