Why it works: Butter and flour 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
Wet a thick stone pastry slab with a little water.
Knead ½ pound of butter to remove salt and buttermilk, reserving 1 ounce of butter.
Wrap the remaining butter in a floured napkin and place it on ice.
Dry the slab thoroughly and sift ½ pound of flour onto it, forming a well.
Add the reserved butter and the egg yolk into the well, and cream them with your fingers.
Gradually add the flour from the well, mixing in enough ice-cold water to form a dough similar to shortcake.
Knead the dough on the slab until it is clean and does not stick to your fingers.
Shape the dough into a ball, dust the slab lightly with flour, and flatten the dough.
Beat the dough with a rolling pin for 5 minutes, turning and folding it constantly.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter and flour 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
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