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 ↓
Near Puff-paste
Ingredients
Directions
Sift the flour and salt together.
Rub the lard into the flour with your fingers until it resembles fine crumbs.
Chop in the butter with a knife.
Add just enough water to form a dough that can be rolled.
Roll the dough into a tight log and press down from the top until flat.
Roll again, always away from you, and end in a roll.
Repeat this process three times.
Wrap the dough in cheesecloth and refrigerate for a few hours.
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
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