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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Rub 2 ounces of butter into the flour, ensuring all salt is washed out of the butter.
Make a dough with enough cold water to moisten the mixture.
If possible, prepare the paste in a cool place.
Laminate
Roll the dough into a sheet and place the remaining butter over it.
Roll out the dough four times.
Rest
Let the paste rest for 1 hour before using.
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).
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 structure that holds the dough and butter layers together.
- Good butter
- Forms separate solid layers that steam apart in the oven, creating flakiness.
- Cold water
- Moistens the flour so it forms a dough that can be rolled out.
The step that matters
Roll the dough into a sheet and place the remaining butter over it.. The butter must stay cold and firm so it stays in distinct layers between dough sheets. If it softens and blends into the dough, the layers that make puff pastry flaky will not form.
“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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