Name: Butter Crust for Puddings
Ingredients: 1 lb all-purpose flour; 8 oz unsalted butter; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (for fruit puddings); 1 teaspoon coarse sea salt (for meat puddings)

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 ↓

Butter Crust for Puddings

Ingredients

1 lb all-purpose flour
8 oz unsalted butter
¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (for fruit puddings)
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt (for meat puddings)

Directions

Make the dough

In a bowl, lightly break the butter into the flour.
Add the salt according to the type of pudding you are making.
Gradually add cold water to form a dough.

Shape

Roll out the dough as needed for your pudding.

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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + meattop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,594 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Flour + meattop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,529 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

All-purpose flour: Forms the main structure of the dough once hydrated.
Unsalted butter: Coats flour particles and creates a tender, flaky texture when cold.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water. Cold water keeps the butter in small solid pieces, which melt during baking and create flaky layers. Warm water softens the butter and makes the crust tough.

“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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Butter Crust for Puddings