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 ↓
Paste, Rich Short Crust
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the pastry
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Rub the butter lightly into the flour.
Add the baking powder, sugar, and egg yolks.
Mix in a little water if necessary to form a stiff paste.
Roll and bake
Roll out the paste thinly and use immediately.
For fruit tarts, brush the crust with cold water and sprinkle with castor sugar before baking.
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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that the pastry sets around as it bakes.
- Butter
- Rubbed into the flour to create a tender, flaky texture by coating flour particles.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and bind the dough together into a workable paste.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the crust rises slightly and stays light.
- Castor sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown when sprinkled on fruit tart crusts.
The step that matters
Rubbing the butter into the flour. If the butter is worked in too much or becomes warm, it melts into the flour instead of staying in small pieces. That reduces the flaky, tender texture the crust depends on.
“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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