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Dessert

Rough Puff Pastry

A rough puff pastry dough made with flour, butter, lemon juice, water, and salt.

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

Rough Puff Pastry

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the flour and salt onto a pastry board.

  2. Cut the butter into large pieces and roll them in the flour.

  3. Make a well in the center of the flour.

  4. Add the lemon juice and a tablespoon of water. Mix into a smooth paste, adding more water gradually.

  5. Knead the dough thoroughly.

  6. Roll the dough out.

Laminate and fold

  1. Fold the butter into the dough.

  2. Roll the dough into a thin strip on a floured board with a floured rolling pin.

  3. Fold the dough in thirds. Press the edges together.

  4. Turn the fold to the left.

  5. Repeat the rolling and folding process until the pastry has had four rolls and four folds.

  6. Roll the pastry to the desired thickness.

  7. The pastry is ready for use.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the layers of the pastry together.
Butter
Creates separate layers that puff apart as the water in it turns to steam during baking.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that tenderises the gluten, making the dough easier to roll.
Cold water
Binds the flour into a dough; keeping it cold helps keep the butter firm.

The step that matters

Keep the butter in large, cold pieces during rolling and folding. If the butter softens or melts into the flour, it cannot form separate layers, so the pastry will not puff and will turn dense.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. 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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