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 Pastry
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the dough
Ensure all ingredients are cold for a crisp, flaky crust.
Rub the shortening into the flour with your fingertips until coarse.
Add just enough cold water to form a dry, non-sticky dough.
Flour your work surface generously.
Roll out the dough for one crust at a time.
Line the pan
Place the bottom crust in the pie pan.
Press the bottom crust against the edges of the pan.
Trim the edges with a knife.
For a deeper pie, build up the edge with rolled pieces of dough.
Moisten the seams with cold water when building up the edge.
If not using a top crust, bake the bottom crust before or after filling.
If baking before filling, brush the crust with egg white to prevent sogginess.
Add the top crust
Roll out the top crust.
Perforate the top crust with a knife or fork for steam to escape.
Moisten the edge of the bottom crust with cold water.
Cover with the top crust.
Press the edges together.
Trim any overhanging edges carefully.
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
- All-purpose flour
- Forms the structure of the crust as its proteins hydrate into a dough.
- Shortening
- Coats flour particles so they stay separate, producing a tender, flaky texture.
- Cold water
- Hydrates the flour just enough to bind the dough without making it tough.
The step that matters
Rub the shortening into the flour until coarse. Leaving the fat in small, cold, separate pieces creates layers that steam apart during baking, giving a flaky rather than mealy crust. Overworking warms the fat and develops gluten, making the crust tough.
“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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