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Paste, Plain Puff

A simple puff pastry dough made with flour, butter, lard, egg, lemon juice, water, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Paste, Plain Puff

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Place the flour on a clean surface and add a little salt.

  2. Chop the butter and lard, then add them to the flour.

  3. Make a hole in the center and add the lemon juice, egg, and enough water to form a stiff paste.

  4. Mix the ingredients well.

Laminate the pastry

  1. Roll out the dough and fold it in half.

  2. Repeat the rolling and folding process three times to prepare the paste 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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.
Butter
Creates layers and flakiness as it stays solid within the dough during rolling.
Lard
Adds tenderness and flakiness by keeping layers separate during rolling.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind the dough together.
Lemon juice
Adds a small amount of acidity that tenderizes the gluten in the dough.

The step that matters

Keeping the fats cold and distinct during folding. If the butter and lard soften and blend into the flour, the dough loses its layers and bakes flat instead of flaky. Working the dough while cool keeps the fat in separate pieces that create steam and lift.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

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