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 ↓
Puff Paste
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Divide the butter into 5 or 6 equal parts.
Cut two parts into thin slices and mix with the sifted flour.
Add a little water and stir with a knife until stiff.
Turn the mixture onto a board.
Laminate the dough
Roll gently with a rolling pin, dusting with flour.
Roll the dough up.
Repeat rolling until all butter is incorporated.
Roll the dough up again.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Forms the layers that separate sheets of dough, creating flakiness when the fat stays solid during rolling.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together and supports the layers of butter.
- Water
- Hydrates the flour so gluten forms, binding the mixture into a workable dough.
The step that matters
Rolling until all butter is incorporated. If the butter warms and softens too much, it blends into the dough instead of staying in distinct layers, so the pastry loses flakiness. Keeping the dough cool between rolls helps the layers hold.
“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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