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 ↓
Common Crust for Raised Pies
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Bring the water to a boil in a saucepan.
Add the butter and lard, and let them melt.
Make a hole in the middle of the flour.
Gradually pour the melted mixture into the hole.
Beat well with a wooden spoon, ensuring the paste isn't too soft.
Knead and rest
Knead the mixture with your hands until stiff, adding a little flour to prevent sticking.
Place the kneaded paste before the fire, covered with a cloth, for a few minutes to make it easier to shape.
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 structure of the dough and gives the crust its body.
- Butter
- Adds fat and flavour, and keeps the crust tender and rich.
- Lard
- Adds fat that shortens gluten strands, giving a tender, flaky texture.
- Water
- Hydrates the flour so gluten can form and the dough can be shaped.
The step that matters
Beat well until the paste is firm, not soft. Too much liquid makes the dough soft and sticky, and it is hard to shape and can bake up tough or greasy. Beating develops the gluten, and kneading in a little flour firms the dough so it holds its shape.
“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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