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 Pastry.— Patisserie Feuilletage
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Sift the flour, ensure it is dry, and place it on a clean surface.
Wring the butter in a clean cloth to remove moisture.
Make a hole in the center of the flour and add the egg yolk, lemon juice, and salt. Mix everything together with enough water to form a firm, smooth dough.
Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick.
Laminate with butter
Roll the butter into a ball and place it in the center of the dough. Fold the dough over the butter, pinching the edges to seal it.
Roll out the dough thinly, ensuring the butter does not break through.
Fold the dough into thirds and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Repeat the rolling and folding process 5 more times, keeping the dough cool each time.
After the final fold, roll out to the desired thickness for use.
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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 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).
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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough once mixed with water and egg.
- Butter
- Layers within the dough; as it melts in the oven it separates the layers so they puff.
- Egg yolk
- Adds richness and helps bind the dough together.
The step that matters
Keeping the butter intact during rolling and folding. If the butter breaks through the dough or warms and softens too much, the layers blend together instead of staying separate, so the pastry will not puff well. Keeping the dough cool between folds keeps the butter in distinct sheets.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonthe original
- Coconutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg. 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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