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 Pastry
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the butter
Wash butter thoroughly in cold water until free from salt.
Pat butter and fold it to remove excess water.
Measure 2 tablespoons of butter.
Form the remaining butter into a flat cake and refrigerate it.
Make the dough
Place flour on a large platter and make a depression in the center.
Add 2 tablespoons of butter, salt, sugar, and egg white, and blend thoroughly with your fingers.
Gradually add cold water and mix to form a soft dough.
Knead the dough until smooth and elastic.
Laminate
Roll dough into a rectangular sheet and place small pieces of butter on one half.
Dredge with flour, fold the other half over, and press edges together.
Pat the dough and press it out into a long sheet.
Fold the sides, then fold the ends to the center.
Cover the dough and chill the dough.
Roll out as before, lifting the dough often and dredging the board to prevent sticking.
Repeat folding and rolling process six times.
Chill thoroughly.
Shape and chill
Cut into shapes.
Chill again until stiff.
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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 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
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Forms separate layers of fat that create flakiness as the dough is folded and rolled.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough layers together during rolling and folding.
- Cold water
- Hydrates the flour to form a dough while keeping the butter cold and separate.
- Egg white
- Adds structure and binding to the dough.
The step that matters
Keeping the butter cold during folding and rolling. If the butter softens and melts into the dough, it blends in rather than forming separate layers, so the pastry loses its flaky rise. Chilling between folds keeps the fat solid.
“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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