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-paste for Pies
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash your hands with soap and water, then dip them in very hot water and then in cold water.
Rinse a large bowl with boiling water, then rinse it with cold water.
Fill the bowl half with cold water.
Wash the butter in the cold water, working it until light and waxy to remove salt and buttermilk.
Shape the butter into two thin cakes.
Place the butter cakes in a pan of ice water to harden.
Make the dough
Mix the salt and sugar with the pastry flour.
Rub one-third of the butter into the flour with your hands.
Add the ice water to the mixture.
Stir quickly with a knife until the mixture forms a smooth ball.
Lightly sprinkle flour on a board.
Turn the paste onto the board.
Pound the paste lightly with a rolling pin without breaking it.
Roll the paste to about ¼ inch thick.
Laminate and rest
Wipe the remaining butter from the paste.
Break the remaining butter into bits.
Spread the butter bits on the paste.
Sprinkle lightly with flour.
Fold the paste from each side so the edges meet.
Fold the paste from the ends without having them meet.
Double the paste.
Pound the paste lightly.
Roll the paste down to about ⅛ inch thick.
Fold the paste as before.
Roll the paste again.
Repeat this process three times for pies and six times for vol-au-vents or tarts.
Place the rolled paste on ice to harden for at least one hour before use.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Pastry flour
- Provides the structure that holds the layers together as the dough is rolled and folded.
- Butter
- Forms separate solid layers that melt during baking, creating steam and the flaky rise.
- Ice water
- Keeps the dough cold and hydrates the flour so it forms a workable paste without melting the butter.
- Salt
- Seasons the dough and adds flavour to the pastry.
- Sugar
- Adds a little sweetness and helps the pastry brown lightly.
The step that matters
Keeping the butter and dough cold during rolling and folding. If the butter softens or melts into the dough, the thin layers blend with the flour instead of staying separate, so the pastry loses its flaky rise. Chilling between folds keeps the butter in distinct sheets.
“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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