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Feuilletage, or Fine French Puff Paste

A buttery puff pastry dough made by layering chilled butter with flour and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Feuilletage, or Fine French Puff Paste

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the butter

  1. Chill the butter over ice before use.

  2. Press moisture from the remaining butter.

  3. If the butter is too soft, cool it in a basin of salted water for an hour.

Make the dough

  1. Break small bits of butter into the flour.

  2. Place salt in the center of the flour mixture.

  3. Add enough water to dissolve the salt.

  4. Gradually moisten the flour to form a smooth paste.

  5. Form the mixture into a ball without softening it too much.

Laminate and roll

  1. Roll the crust out into a square shape.

  2. Place the butter in the center of the crust.

  3. Fold the crust over the butter.

  4. Roll out the crust thinly.

  5. Dust the board with flour as needed.

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. Butter + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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
Cold butter stays in solid pieces that create separate layers, which puff into flaky texture when baked.
Flour
Forms the gluten structure that holds the dough together and supports the layers.
Water
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and dissolves the salt.
Salt
Seasons the dough and dissolves into the water to flavour the pastry.

The step that matters

Keeping the butter cold and firm. If the butter softens and blends into the dough, it cannot form separate layers, so the pastry will not puff into flaky sheets. Chilling and avoiding overworking keep the butter in distinct pieces.

“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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