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Corn-meal Pie Crust

A pastry crust for pies made from flour and cornmeal bound with egg yolk and cold cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corn-meal Pie Crust

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Sift together the flour and cornmeal in a bowl.

  2. Add the salt and mix lightly.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg yolk and cold cream or milk quickly.

  4. Gather the mixture into a ball without kneading.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly and place it in a floured pie dish.

  2. Fill the crust and bake 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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

White flour
Provides the main structure that holds the crust together.
Cornmeal
Adds a coarser, crumbly texture and a mild corn flavor.
Egg yolk
Binds the dough and adds richness and tenderness.
Cold sweet cream or rich milk
Supplies moisture and fat that keep the dough workable and tender.

The step that matters

Stir in the cold cream or milk quickly. Working the dough too long develops gluten in the flour and makes the crust tough. Keeping the liquid cold and mixing briefly helps keep the crust 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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