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, No. 2
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.
Mix the lemon juice with cold water to make ½ cup.
Combine the flour and salt with the lemon-water to form a dough.
Lightly flour a pastry board or marble slab to prevent sticking.
Roll out the dough.
Add the butter and fold
Divide the butter into small pieces and dot them evenly on the dough.
Sprinkle a little more flour over the butter.
Fold the edges of the dough into the center.
Set aside in a cool place for 15 minutes.
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).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
-
Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 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 dough its structure.
- Unsalted butter
- Forms separate layers of fat that create flakiness when the dough is baked.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that helps tenderise the gluten in the dough.
The step that matters
Keeping the butter in distinct pieces. The butter must stay cold and in separate pieces so it forms layers. If it melts into the dough, the layers are lost and the pastry will not rise flaky.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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