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
Mix 1 pound of flour with 1 egg and enough water to form a stiff dough.
Knead the dough until it becomes pliable and can draw in strings.
Incorporate 1 pound of butter into the dough until tough.
Laminate
Roll out the dough thickly.
Fold in the butter evenly.
Roll out the dough again.
Fold in regular folds three times.
Roll out to a thickness of about ¼ inch for pates.
Shape and bake
Cut into desired shapes.
Place on a baking sheet.
Brush with a mixture of yolk and a little water, avoiding the sides.
Bake until golden.
Remove tops.
Scoop out soft paste.
Place on paper to absorb excess butter.
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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Egg + buttertop 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
- Forms the layers that separate into flaky sheets, creating lift as it turns to steam in the oven.
- Egg
- Adds richness and helps bind the stiff dough.
- Egg yolk
- Brushed on top to give the pastry a golden browning finish.
The step that matters
Incorporate the butter until tough. The butter must stay in cold, distinct pieces between dough layers. If it softens and blends in, the layers merge and the pastry will not puff into flaky sheets.
“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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