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Dessert

Puff Paste

Puff paste is a buttery dough that puffs when baked, used for pie crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Wash the butter in cold water and flatten it into a thin cake.

  2. Chill the butter on ice until very cold.

  3. Mix half of the butter with the flour and add enough ice-water to form a dough.

  4. Roll the dough to ½ inch thickness.

Laminate

  1. Add half of the remaining butter in small bits and dredge with flour.

  2. Roll up the paste, then roll it out again thin.

  3. Add the rest of the butter, roll up and out again three or four times.

  4. Keep the dough cool on ice until ready to use.

Shape and bake

  1. Butter the pie plates.

  2. Roll out the dough for the pie crust and place it in the plates.

  3. Cut a long strip for the rims.

  4. Brush the rim with cold water and between each layer to make the paste puffier.

  5. Fill the pies, cover with the crust, and brush the top with beaten egg white for a glossy finish.

  6. Bake in a quick oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Forms separate layers of fat that create flakiness as the water in it turns to steam.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure to hold its many layers.
Ice-water
Hydrates the flour to form a dough while keeping the butter cold and in solid pieces.
Egg white
Brushed on top, it gives the crust a glossy sheen and helps it brown.

The step that matters

Keep the butter and dough cold while laminating. Cold butter stays in solid pieces between sheets of dough. In the oven it melts and releases steam that lifts the layers apart. If the butter softens and blends into the dough, the layers merge and the pastry will not puff.

“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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