Skip to main content

Feuilletage, or Pine French Puff Paste

Contains saltpetre; ensure proper food safety practices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Feuilletage, or Pine French Puff Paste

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Chill the butter over ice before use.

  2. Break small bits of butter lightly into the flour.

  3. Add salt to the center of the flour and pour enough water to dissolve it.

  4. Moisten the flour gradually with water mixed with the eggs to form a smooth paste.

  5. Press moisture from the remaining butter and form it into a ball without softening it too much.

  6. If the butter is too soft, cool it in a basin of salted water for an hour before using.

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. Butter + flourtop 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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Dough 47Jam Sandwiches 11Cheese 10Rings 10Jam Squares 9Meat Rolls 8 See all 341 →

You might also like

Green Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding64 recipesCornmeal mushCornmeal mush12 recipes