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
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Mash the butter and chill it in a cloth until very cold.
Sift and weigh the flour, removing 1 tablespoon for later use.
Make the dough
Mix the salt and sugar into the flour, then add the ice water and knead into a dough.
Roll out the dough thinly on a floured surface.
Laminate and bake
Cut the dough in half and place pieces of the hardened butter on one half.
Sprinkle with flour and cover with the other half of the dough.
Pound the center, then roll and fold the dough, reversing the roll as needed.
Continue rolling until the paste is smooth, chilling if necessary.
Cut into patties and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.
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).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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 separate layers of fat that steam apart in the oven, creating flakiness and lift.
- Pastry flour
- Provides the structure that holds the layers together while the dough is rolled and folded.
- Ice water
- Hydrates the flour to form the dough while keeping the butter cold and firm.
The step that matters
Keeping the butter cold during rolling. If the butter softens and blends into the dough, it cannot form distinct layers, so the pastry loses its flakiness. Chilling between folds keeps the fat in solid 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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