Skip to main content
Dessert

Puff Pastry

A laminated dough made by layering butter and dough, rolled and folded repeatedly.

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

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 ↓

Puff Pastry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Press the butter lightly into the corner of a floured cloth.

  2. Rub a small piece of butter into the flour and add salt.

  3. Mix water and lemon juice, then combine with flour to form an elastic dough.

  4. Work the dough lightly until smooth.

Laminate

  1. Roll out the dough into a square.

  2. Place the square pat of butter in the center and fold the dough over it.

  3. Press lightly with a rolling pin.

  4. Roll out into a long strip, keeping the open ends aligned.

  5. Flour the surface. Fold the dough in thirds.

  6. Roll out again.

  7. Repeat rolling out and folding two more times.

Rest and finish

  1. Set aside in a cool place for 30 minutes.

  2. Roll out two more times.

  3. Use.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its elastic structure.
Butter
Forms separate layers that steam apart in the oven, producing flaky rise.
Water
Hydrates the flour so gluten can develop into an elastic dough.
Lemon juice
Acidity tenderises gluten, keeping the dough easier to roll without tearing.

The step that matters

Keeping the butter layer intact during folding. If the butter softens and blends into the dough, the layers merge and the pastry loses its flaky rise. Keep the dough cool and work it with light, even pressure.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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

Dough 47Jam Sandwiches 11Cheese 10Rings 10Jam Squares 9Meat Rolls 8 See all 341 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes