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Dessert

Puff-paste

A dough made from flour, butter, egg yolk, salt, and water, kneaded and folded to create layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Puff-paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Place the flour on a clean surface and form a well in the center.

  2. Add the salt, butter, egg yolk, and two‑thirds of the water into the well.

  3. Using your fingertips, gradually mix the ingredients, adding more water if needed.

  4. Once combined, sprinkle a few drops of water over the mixture and knead for 2 minutes until smooth.

Enclose the butter

  1. Spread the paste out and press the butter (wrapped in a cloth) into the center.

  2. Fold the sides of the paste over the butter to cover it completely.

  3. Dust with flour and shape into a square about 10 inches on each side.

  4. Place on a baking sheet over crushed ice to keep cool.

Roll and fold

  1. After 10 minutes, transfer to a marble surface, dust with flour, and roll out to 2 feet long and 10 inches wide.

  2. Fold the paste into thirds, roll again, and return to the ice.

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).

  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).

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 dough its structure and strength.
Unsalted butter
Forms separate fat layers that create flaky layers when the pastry bakes.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the dough together.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour so the dough comes together and becomes elastic.

The step that matters

Keeping the butter cold during rolling. If the butter softens and blends into the dough, it will not form distinct layers, so the pastry will not puff. Chilling on ice between rolls keeps the fat firm.

“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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