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 Pie Crust
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the dough
In a bowl, rub the shortening into the flour until well combined.
Add the baking powder and salt, then mix in enough cold water to form a stiff dough. Mix as little as possible to keep the dough light.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough to fit your pie dish.
If you have leftover dough, roll it thin, cut into small squares, and bake.
Serve
Before serving, top each square with a spoonful of raspberry jelly.
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
- Forms the main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
- Shortening
- Coats the flour particles, keeping the crust tender and flaky rather than tough.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking to make the crust light and lift.
- Cold water
- Hydrates the flour so the mixture binds into a stiff, rollable dough.
The step that matters
Mix the dough as little as possible. Once water is added, overworking lets gluten develop in the flour, which makes the crust tough instead of light and tender.
“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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