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 ↓
Pie Crust
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together.
Rub in the lard until well combined.
Bind the mixture with the ice water, mixing with a knife until very stiff.
Take the dough up in a rough mass and roll it out quickly.
Laminate and portion
Dot the rolled dough with small pieces of butter and sprinkle with flour.
Fold the dough over and roll it out again.
Cut into pieces for each pan, handling the dough as little as possible.
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
- Provides the structure that holds the crust together once it is rolled and baked.
- Sweet lard
- Rubbed into the flour to coat it, shortening the dough and giving a tender, flaky texture.
- Butter
- Dotted onto the rolled dough to add fat layers that help create flakiness and flavor.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking to lighten the crust slightly.
- Ice water
- Binds the dough while staying cold, so the fat stays in solid pieces for flakiness.
The step that matters
Binding with ice water. Mixing until very stiff and handling the dough quickly keeps the fat cold and in distinct pieces. Overworking develops gluten, which makes the crust tough rather than tender and 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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