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Puff Paste

A laminated dough made by folding butter into flour and water, then rolling and chilling to create flaky layers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Puff Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse a large bowl with boiling water, then fill it with cold water and let it stand until cold. Pour out the water and fill with fresh cold water.

  2. Wash your hands in cold water without drying them.

  3. Wash the butter by working it under cold water until soft, then pat to remove excess water. Reserve 2 tablespoons.

  4. Form the remaining butter into a cake, place it on a plate, and chill in the ice.

Make the dough

  1. On a large platter, place the flour and make a depression in the center.

  2. Add the reserved butter, salt, sugar, and egg white.

  3. Work to a paste with your fingertips, slowly adding cold water and mixing in the flour to form a soft dough.

  4. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic, then roll it into a rectangular sheet.

Laminate

  1. Cut the chilled butter into small pieces and place them on the lower half of the paste.

  2. Dredge with flour, fold the upper half over the lower, and press the edges together.

  3. Pat and roll into a long sheet, about 3 inches thick.

  4. Fold the sides and ends to the center.

  5. Turn the paste halfway around.

  6. Pat and roll again.

  7. Repeat this process six times.

  8. If the paste sticks, chill it between rollings.

  9. Chill the shaped paste thoroughly before baking.

Bake

  1. Ensure the paste is ice-cold when placed in a hot oven.

  2. If the oven is too hot, it will brown before puffing.

  3. Once the paste has puffed, reduce the oven heat and place an inverted pan under the baking sheet to prevent burning.

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 + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the layers of dough and butter together.
Butter
Forms separate layers that create steam and lift as the pastry bakes, giving flakiness.
Cold water
Keeps the dough cool and workable so the butter stays in distinct pieces.
Egg white
Adds structure and helps bind the dough into a smooth paste.

The step that matters

Keep the paste ice-cold before baking. Cold butter stays solid in the layers, and when it hits a hot oven the water in it turns to steam and pushes the layers apart. If the butter has softened, the layers merge and the pastry does not puff well.

“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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