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Dessert

Plain Pie Crust

A simple pie crust made with flour, lard or butter, salt, sugar, baking powder, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the salt, sugar, and baking powder with the flour.

  2. Rub in half of the lard or butter until well combined.

  3. Add the cold water and stir with a knife until a smooth ball forms.

  4. Place the dough on a floured board.

Laminate the dough

  1. Roll the dough to about ¼ inch thick.

  2. Spread half of the remaining lard or butter on the dough. Sprinkle lightly with flour, then fold the dough.

  3. Roll the dough out again to ¼ inch thick.

  4. Add the remaining lard or butter. Fold the dough.

  5. Roll the dough out again to ¼ inch thick. Roll the dough up again.

Rest

  1. Set aside to cool, or use immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 dough as its proteins hydrate and form gluten.
Lard or butter
Fat coats the flour and is layered through the dough, keeping it flaky and tender.
Cold water
Binds the flour and fat into a dough while keeping the fat firm.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the crust slightly and lighten its texture.
Sugar
Adds a little sweetness and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Keep the fat cold and the dough handling light. Cold fat stays in solid pieces that melt in the oven and leave flaky layers. If the fat softens or the dough is overworked, gluten toughens the crust and the layers blur.

“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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