Skip to main content
Dessert

To Make Rough Puff Pastry

A dough made from flour, butter, lemon juice, salt, and cold water, folded and rolled to create layers for puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

To Make Rough Puff Pastry

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Combine flour and butter on a clean surface, cutting the butter into pieces the size of a large bean.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and add cold water and lemon juice to form a paste that is almost wet enough to stick to the bowl.

  3. Turn the paste onto a well-floured surface and shape it into a square and flat form, dusting with flour if any butter shows.

Laminate

  1. Using a floured rolling pin, roll the paste into a rectangle about 1 foot long, keeping the sides straight and corners square.

  2. Fold one end over the other evenly to create a three-fold.

  3. Turn the folded dough half around so the edges face you.

  4. Press down the ends with the rolling pin to secure the layers.

  5. Roll out lightly again.

  6. Repeat the rolling and folding process four times, but for the last fold, simply fold the paste in half.

  7. Roll out to the required size and shape, ensuring to roll only towards and away from you until all folding is complete.

Finish and bake

  1. Optionally mix in a yolk of egg for added richness, but it is not necessary.

  2. Bake in a very hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 network that gives the dough its structure and layers.
Butter
Creates separate fat layers that melt in the oven, producing flakiness and rise.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour so the paste can bind while the butter stays in solid pieces.
Lemon juice
Adds a little acidity that tenderizes the gluten, making the dough easier to roll.

The step that matters

Keeping the butter in pieces during folding. If the butter softens or smears into the flour, the layers merge and the pastry loses its flakiness. Keep the dough cool and dust with flour when butter shows.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes