Why it works: Flour and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,481 recipes. Both carry acetaldehyde, which smells pungent, ethereal. The science ↓
Plain Pastry
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mix together Graham and white flour.
Wet with cold sweet cream in the proportion of 3 cups flour to 1 scant cup cream. Stir rapidly and lightly with a spoon.
Rest and roll
Gather the dough with fingers without kneading and set in a cool place for 30 minutes before rolling out.
If using baking powder, roll and bake immediately.
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.
-
Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Graham flour
- Provides the body and nutty flavour of the dough.
- White flour
- Provides structure and tenderness, balancing the coarser Graham flour.
- Cold sweet cream
- Adds fat and moisture, making the dough tender and flaky.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas to lighten the dough when baked immediately after rolling.
The step that matters
Stir rapidly and lightly, without kneading. Overworking flour develops gluten, which toughens the dough. Light handling and keeping the cream cold keep the pastry tender.
“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.
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.