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Crust, Common, for Raised Pies

A simple crust made from butter, lard, water, and flour, kneaded into a stiff paste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Crust, Common, for Raised Pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Melt the butter and lard in the water over low heat.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour.

  3. Pour the melted mixture into the flour while stirring continuously.

  4. Knead the mixture with your hands until it forms a stiff paste.

Keep the dough soft

  1. To keep the dough soft, cover the portion not being used with a plate over a saucepan of hot water.

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.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the crust as its proteins develop into gluten when kneaded.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor, and its fat keeps the crust tender.
Lard
Shortens the gluten strands, giving the crust a tender, crumbly texture.

The step that matters

Keeping the unused dough warm. The melted fat firms as it cools, making the dough stiff and hard to shape. Covering the portion not in use over hot water keeps the fat soft so the dough stays workable.

“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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