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 for Stringing Tartlets
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix the flour and butter with your hands.
Add cold water gradually until the mixture begins to string.
Cut the dough into small pieces and roll it out.
Draw the rolled dough into fine strings.
Shape and bake
Lay the strings across your tartlets in any design.
Bake the tartlets immediately at 400°F (200°C).
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
What each ingredient does
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the dough as its proteins develop into gluten when mixed with water.
- Fresh butter
- Adds fat that keeps the dough tender and helps it crisp and brown as it bakes.
The step that matters
Add cold water gradually until the mixture begins to string. Too much water lets gluten develop and makes the dough tough. Adding it slowly and using cold water keeps the butter firm, which gives a more tender, flaky crust.
“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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