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 ↓
Rich Puff Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Weigh 1 pound of flour and ¼ pound of butter. Mix a little butter with the flour and add enough water to form a stiff paste.
Roll out the paste and layer all the butter in slices on top. Fold the ends and roll it thin. Repeat this process twice.
For a less rich paste, rub together 1 pound of flour and 6 ounces of butter. Mix with a little water and 1 beaten egg until just combined.
For rice paste, boil ¼ pound of ground rice in the smallest quantity of water. Strain out the moisture.
Beat the strained rice with ½ ounce of butter and 1 beaten egg until smooth.
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.
-
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,645 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Flour + ricetop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,611 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
More puff pastry recipes
You might also like
Rice Cake120 recipes
Rice Cream43 recipes
Rice Jelly42 recipes
Rice Pudding22 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.