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 ↓
Pate a Brioches
Ingredients
Directions
Sift the flour and place it on a clean surface.
Divide the flour into four equal parts.
Take one part to make the levain: create a hole in the center and add washed yeast.
To wash the yeast, pour water over it, stir, and let it sit until the dregs settle.
Discard the liquid and take a large tablespoon of the yeast sediment.
Add this to the flour for the levain.
Pour hot water over the yeast and mix to activate it, ensuring the mixture is not too liquid.
In a small pan, sprinkle some flour, add the yeast mixture, make slits in the paste, cover, and place near heat for 15 minutes.
Check if the yeast is active; if so, proceed to the next step.
Make a large hole in the remaining flour, add four pinches of salt and a pinch of sugar, and a little water to dissolve the salt.
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).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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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