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-paste
Ingredients
Directions
Ensure the flour is dry and of the best quality.
Wash the butter and chill it until firm.
In a bowl, mound the flour and make a hole in the center.
Break the egg into the hole and mix it in lightly.
Add enough ice water to make a soft paste.
Flour a board and rolling pin, then roll out the paste thinly.
Cut the butter into 4 equal parts and dot ¼ of it over the paste.
Dredge lightly with extra flour, fold the paste from the sides to the center, then in thirds.
Turn the dough 90 degrees and roll it out again until thin.
Repeat the process with the next ¼ of butter, dredging with flour and folding as before.
Continue this process until all the butter is incorporated.
After the last rolling, fold the dough again and cut it into 3 parts.
Place the parts on plates.
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 + 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).
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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