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Dessert

Best Short Crust

A short crust pastry dough for pies, made with flour, shortening, butter, baking powder, salt, sugar, egg, lemon juice, and ice water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Landmarks Club · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Tea and lemon work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 610 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Best Short Crust

three pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Sift all the dry ingredients and rub in shortening.

  2. Beat up egg and water and add to the mixture until you get a stiff dough.

  3. Roll out on well floured board about one-sixth of an inch in thickness.

  4. Use the proportion commonly used: four cups flour to one and a half cups shortening (half butter, half lard), one level teaspoonful baking powder.

  5. Add about a coffee cupful of water to give the right consistency; this will make three pies.

  6. Use two cups flour, scant half cup of shortening, pinch of salt, one-half teaspoonful baking powder, ice water to moisten; this will make one pie with two crusts.

Fill and bake

  1. Line deep plates with paste.

  2. Fill as full as possible with the fruit.

  3. Dredge over a tablespoonful of flour and two of sugar.

  4. Add a little more flour and considerably more sugar for cherries or currants.

  5. Wet the edges of lower crust.

  6. Press the top crust down very thoroughly.

  7. Bake about forty minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

811Calories
20 gProtein
31 gFat
112 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Lard1 tbsp (12.8g)115
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Pienot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Landmarks Club. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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. See the original page.

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.

  1. Tea + lemontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 crust as gluten develops when the dough is mixed and rolled.
Shortening
Coats flour particles to keep the crust tender and flaky by limiting gluten formation.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the crust slightly, giving it a lighter texture.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds moisture and richness to the crust.

The step that matters

Press the top crust down very thoroughly. Sealing the top and bottom crusts at the edges keeps juices inside the pie. A poor seal lets filling leak and can leave the crust soggy or dry at the edges during baking.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, egg, tea, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, tea, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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