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 Over 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
Combine flour and butter in a bowl.
Add cold water gradually and mix until the dough begins to come together.
Knead the dough on a floured surface until it becomes smooth and elastic.
Cut the dough into small pieces.
Shape and bake
Roll each piece into fine strings.
Lay the strings across your tartlets.
Bake 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 main structure of the dough once mixed with water and kneaded.
- Butter
- Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps it from becoming tough.
The step that matters
Add cold water gradually. Adding water slowly lets the flour absorb it evenly. Too much water at once makes the dough sticky and hard to handle, while cold water keeps the butter firm so the dough stays tender.
“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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