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Dessert

Short Pastry.— No. 2

A short pastry dough made with flour, butter, water, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Short Pastry.— No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift the flour into a bowl.

  2. Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles fine bread crumbs.

Make the dough

  1. Make a well in the center and strain in the lemon juice.

  2. Mix in the water to form a stiff paste.

  3. Knead for a few minutes until smooth, then it's ready to use.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough as its proteins bind with water.
Butter
Coats the flour particles, adding fat that keeps the pastry tender and short.
Lemon juice
Adds a little acidity and brightness to the dough.

The step that matters

Rubbing the butter into the flour. Work the butter in lightly and quickly, keeping it cool. Fat coating the flour particles limits gluten development, so the pastry stays short and tender rather than tough.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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

“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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