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Dessert

Very Good Puff-paste

A laminated dough made by layering butter and flour paste, then rolling and folding to create 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 ↓

Very Good Puff-paste

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Weigh the flour and butter accurately.

  2. Squeeze the butter to extract moisture.

  3. Wring the butter in a clean cloth.

  4. Sift the flour to ensure it is dry.

  5. Mix the flour with the water using a knife until a smooth paste forms.

  6. Adjust water as needed to avoid toughness.

Laminate

  1. Roll the paste to about 1 inch thick.

  2. Break 4 ounces of butter into small pieces and place on the paste.

  3. Dust a little flour over the butter pieces.

  4. Fold the paste over.

  5. Roll it out again.

  6. Add another 4 ounces of butter.

  7. Repeat this process until all butter is used.

  8. Dust flour over the paste.

  9. Dust flour over the rolling pin.

  10. Handle the paste lightly.

  11. Avoid pressing too hard.

  12. Brush the paste with egg white after each rolling to help it rise.

Bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) before baking.

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. 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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that holds the paste's layers together.
Unsalted butter
Forms separate layers that create flakiness as the water in it turns to steam.
Water
Hydrates the flour so it forms a workable paste with gluten.
Egg white
Brushed on the surface to help the pastry rise and brown.

The step that matters

Keep the butter cold and the paste handled lightly. If butter softens or melts into the dough, the layers blend together instead of staying separate, so the pastry loses its flaky rise. Light handling and avoiding pressure keep the layers intact and prevent toughness from overworked gluten.

“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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