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 ↓
Plain Pie-crust
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
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, rub the shortening into the sifted flour until well combined.
Add the salt and baking powder, then mix in the cold water gradually to form a stiff dough.
Handle the dough lightly and mix just enough to shape it for rolling out.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough to fit two pie pans.
Use any leftover dough to roll thin, cut into small squares, and bake.
Before serving, top each square with a spoonful of raspberry jelly.
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).
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
- Forms the main structure of the dough once combined with liquid.
- Shortening
- Coats flour particles to keep the crust tender and flaky.
- Butter
- Adds flavor and creates flaky layers as it melts during baking.
- Lard
- Adds tenderness and flakiness by keeping fat pieces separate in the dough.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking to lighten the crust.
The step that matters
Handle the dough lightly and mix just enough to shape it for rolling out.. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the crust tough instead of tender and flaky.
“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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