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Paste Puff for Tarts, Etc

A pastry dough made by mixing flour, butter, and water into a smooth paste, rolled and folded to create layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Paste Puff for Tarts, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the paste

  1. Take 3 ounces of flour from the pound for working the pastry.

  2. Mix the remaining flour with the baking powder in a bowl. Rub one portion of the butter into the flour.

  3. Add enough water to form a smooth paste. Roll out the paste to about 1 inch thick.

  4. Divide the paste in half. Set one half aside.

Laminate the dough

  1. Roll out the other half until it is very thin, less than ¼ inch thick. Break the second portion of butter into small pieces.

  2. Place the butter pieces over the paste, leaving a 1‑inch margin. Dredge lightly with some of the reserved flour.

  3. Fold the paste into thirds. Roll out the paste to 1 inch thick.

  4. Repeat the process with the other half of the paste and the remaining butter. Stack the two pieces on top of each other.

  5. Roll out the stack to ½ inch thick. Fold the paste.

Rest

  1. Place it between two dishes. Refrigerate until the next day.

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).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the paste its structure.
Unsalted butter
Creates separate fat layers that turn into flakiness when baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas to help the dough rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Keeping the butter in distinct layers. Rolling and folding must leave the butter in cold, separate sheets. If the butter softens and blends into the flour, the layers merge and the pastry loses its flakiness.

“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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