Name: Common Crust for Raised Pies
Ingredients: 1 lb. flour; a good pinch of salt; 3 oz. butter or dripping; 1 cup water

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 ↓

Common Crust for Raised Pies

Ingredients

1 lb. flour
a good pinch of salt
3 oz. butter or dripping
1 cup water

Directions

Make the dough

Boil the water and stir in the butter until melted.
In a bowl, combine flour and salt.
Gradually add the water and melted butter to the flour mixture.
Mix well and knead with your hands until stiff.

Rest the dough

Cover with a cloth and let it sit in a warm place for a few minutes to make it easier to shape.

Richer variation

For a richer crust, add more butter, one or two eggs, and reduce the water.

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).

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 crust's structure as its proteins develop into gluten when mixed with water.
Butter: Fat that coats flour particles, keeping the crust tender and short.
Water: Hydrates the flour so the dough can come together and gluten can develop.