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 ↓
English Puff-paste
Ingredients
Directions
In a large bowl, break up the flour and mix in the butter until crumbly.
Add a pinch of salt and enough cold water to form a smooth, pliable dough.
Roll the dough out to ¾ inch thick and place 6 ounces of butter in small pieces on top.
Fold the dough over the butter like a blanket pudding and roll it out again.
Repeat the process by adding 6 ounces of butter, rolling, and dusting with flour each time.
Continue this process until all the butter is incorporated, rolling the dough thin 3 to 4 times.
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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