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 Pasts
Ingredients
Directions
Weigh equal amounts of flour and butter.
Rub slightly more than half of the flour into one-third of the butter.
Add enough cold water to form a stiff paste.
Work the mixture until the butter is fully incorporated with the flour.
Shape the dough into a round ball and beat it with a rolling pin.
Dust the dough and rolling pin with flour, then roll it out evenly.
Dot the surface with small pieces of butter and dust with flour.
Fold in the sides and roll it up, dusting with flour to prevent sticking.
If butter remains, add it during the second or third rolling.
Minimize handling with your hands.
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
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