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French Puff Pastry

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

French Puff Pastry

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Sift the flour through a wire sieve.

  2. Mix the yolks with lemon juice and enough cold water to form a soft paste.

  3. Knead the mixture until smooth and roll it out into a long strip.

  4. Wrap the butter in a floured towel and squeeze out moisture without softening it.

  5. If it's hot, chill the butter in the ice for 30 minutes before use.

  6. Shape the butter into a flat cake slightly smaller than the pastry.

  7. Place the butter on one end of the pastry, wet the edge slightly, and fold the pastry over the butter.

  8. Seal the edges well, turn it around, and press with a rolling pin.

  9. Roll it out, fold it in thirds, and let it rest in a cool place for 15 minutes.

  10. Repeat the rolling and folding process seven times, resting for 15 minutes between each.

  11. Before the last two rollings, sprinkle a few drops of lemon juice over the pastry.

  12. Always arrange the pastry with rough edges facing you and keep the edges as square as possible.

  13. After the final rolling, cover the pastry with a damp cloth and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or preferably overnight.

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).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Coconutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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