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 ↓
Brioche Baste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare a sponge-like paste and mix gently but thoroughly.
Spread a napkin in a wooden bowl or basin and shake flour over it.
Lift the paste into the bowl, shake a little flour over it, and cover with the napkin.
Set the bowl in a cool place, free from drafts, overnight.
The next morning, turn the paste onto a floured surface and fold it over six times, pressing down with your knuckles each time.
Return the paste to the bowl and knead again after three hours.
When finished, the paste should be elastic and full of small air bubbles.
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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