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Puff-paste

A laminated dough made with flour, salt, water, and butter or suet, folded and rolled to create layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Puff-paste

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Turn the flour onto a cold marble slab and make a hollow in the center.

  2. Add the salt and ¼ cup of iced water into the hollow.

  3. Gradually mix the flour with the water until half mixed.

  4. Add more iced water as needed to form a dough.

  5. Knead the dough until it no longer sticks to the slab.

  6. Shape the dough into a ball.

  7. Cover the dough with a cloth.

  8. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.

Prepare the fat

  1. If using butter, knead it in a cloth until pliant.

  2. If using suet, pound it in a mortar until pliant.

Laminate

  1. Flour the slab.

  2. Flatten the dough to about 2 inches thick.

  3. Shape the dough into a square.

  4. Spread the butter or suet evenly over the dough, leaving a 1-inch margin around the edges.

  5. Fold the sides of the dough to the center, enclosing the butter or suet, forming a smaller square.

  6. Roll the dough out to nearly 3 feet long.

  7. Fold one-third towards the center and fold the other third over it.

  8. Repeat the rolling and folding process.

  9. Let the dough rest in the ice-box for 10 minutes if the weather is warm.

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).

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 gluten network that gives the dough its structure and holds the layers together.
Iced butter or clarified suet
Forms separate solid layers that steam and lift the dough, creating flakiness when baked.
Iced water
Hydrates the flour to form the dough while keeping it cold so the fat stays solid.

The step that matters

Spreading the butter or suet evenly with a margin. Keeping the fat in an even, unbroken layer produces even flakiness. If the fat warms, softens, or breaks through the dough, the layers merge and the pastry loses its flaky rise.

“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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