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
Combine flour and half of the butter in a bowl.
Add enough cold water to form a dough.
Roll out the dough thinly.
Laminate the dough
Dot the surface with half of the remaining butter, cut into small pieces.
Dredge with flour, then roll up the dough.
Roll it out again, thinly.
Add the rest of the butter and repeat the rolling process until all butter is used.
Rest
Keep the dough in a cool place until ready to use.
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 dough's structure and gives the layers something to hold them together.
- Unsalted butter
- Forms separate solid layers that turn to steam in the oven, lifting the dough into flaky sheets.
The step that matters
Repeat the rolling with the butter. The butter must stay cold and in distinct layers. If it softens and blends into the dough, it cannot separate the layers, and the pastry will turn dense instead of flaky.
“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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