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Dessert

Puff or Flaky Pie Crust

A pie crust made with flour, lard, water, cream of tartar, baking soda, and butter, layered and rolled for flakiness.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Puff or Flaky Pie Crust

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine flour, lard, cream of tartar, and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Cut the lard into small pieces using a knife.

  3. Gradually pour in the water while stirring with a knife until the mixture comes together.

  4. Lightly flour a board and turn the dough out.

Laminate the dough

  1. Roll the dough gently to ½ inch thickness.

  2. Spread a layer of butter on the dough, dust lightly with flour, and roll it up.

  3. Stand the rolled dough on its end and pat it down with a rolling pin.

  4. Roll out the dough again, spread another layer of butter, and roll it up once more.

Shape and fill the pie

  1. Roll the dough to ½ inch thickness and line a pie plate with it.

  2. Let the dough rest for 30 minutes before using.

  3. Fill the pie, dampen the lower edge of the crust with water, and place the upper crust loosely on top.

  4. Press the edges of the crust together firmly and trim with a sharp knife, avoiding folding the edges under.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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 gluten network that gives the crust its structure.
Lard
Solid fat cut into the flour, creating pockets that make the crust flaky.
Water
Hydrates the flour so the dough comes together and can be rolled.
Butter
Spread between rolled layers, adding richness and separating layers for flakiness.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that tenderizes the dough and helps keep it pliable.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to lighten the crust and aid browning.

The step that matters

Keep the fat in solid pieces and handle the dough gently. Lard cut into small solid pieces melts during baking and leaves steam pockets that create flaky layers. If the fat is overworked or softened into the flour, the crust turns tough and mealy instead of 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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