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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Rub the butter and lard into the flour mixture until well combined.
Add cold water gradually, mixing just enough to form a stiff dough.
Shape and bake
Handle the dough lightly and roll it out for two pies.
For leftover dough, roll it thin, cut into squares, and bake.
Top each square with a spoonful of raspberry jelly before serving.
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
- Provides the structure that holds the crust together once baked.
- Butter
- Cold fat pieces create flaky layers as they melt and steam during baking.
- Lard
- Adds tenderness and flakiness by coating flour particles and limiting gluten development.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking to lighten the crust and help it rise slightly.
The step that matters
Add cold water gradually, mixing just enough to form a stiff dough.. Too much water or overmixing develops gluten, making the crust tough instead of tender. Keeping the fat cold and the mixing light preserves the flaky layers that make pie crust work.
“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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