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 ↓
Pie-crust
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a large bowl, mix the lard with the flour and salt.
Add the cold water and mix until combined.
Gently fold in the butter pieces until evenly distributed.
Roll out
Roll out the dough on a floured surface to your desired thickness.
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).
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
- Lard
- Fat that coats flour particles, keeping the crust tender and flaky.
- Butter
- Solid fat pieces melt during baking, leaving layers that make the crust flaky and add flavor.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the crust together as it bakes.
- Cold water
- Moistens the flour so the fat and flour bind into a workable dough.
The step that matters
Gently fold in the butter pieces. Butter must stay in solid pieces so it creates flaky layers when it melts in the oven. Overworking blends it into the flour, making the crust dense and less 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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