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Dessert

Pie Crust with Milk

A simple pie crust made with butter, lard, flour, salt, baking powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pie Crust with Milk

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

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

  2. Rub in the butter and lard until well combined.

  3. Moisten the mixture with a little milk, stirring lightly with a spoon.

Shape

  1. Roll the dough very thin.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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
Provides the structure that holds the crust together when baked.
Butter
Adds fat that keeps the crust tender and rich in flavor.
Lard
Coats flour particles to keep the crust tender and flaky.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the crust rise and lighten.
Milk
Adds moisture so the flour and fat bind into a workable dough.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture with a little milk, stirring lightly. Too much liquid or vigorous stirring develops gluten, which makes the crust tough instead of tender. Add milk gradually and stop once the dough just holds together.

“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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