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).
In a bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder.
Rub the cold butter and lard into the flour mixture until well combined.
Add cold water gradually, mixing just enough to form a stiff dough.
Roll and bake
Handle the dough lightly and roll it out for two pies.
Use leftover dough to cut small squares, bake them, and top with raspberry jelly before serving.
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 structure of the crust once mixed with water and fat.
- Butter
- Cold fat creates flaky layers as it melts and steam lifts the dough.
- Lard
- Cold fat adds tenderness and flakiness to the crust.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas to lighten the crust and help it rise.
- Cold water
- Binds the flour and fat into a dough that holds together.
The step that matters
Handle the dough lightly. Overworking flour and water develops gluten, which makes the crust tough instead of tender. Keeping the fat cold and mixing only until the dough holds together preserves flaky layers.
“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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