Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓
Crust for Raised Pies
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Combine lard, butter, and water in a saucepan.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Once boiling, mix in the sifted flour using a spoon.
Use your hands to combine the dough.
Shape
Roll out the dough as you would for any pie crust.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the crust as its starch and proteins set.
- Lard
- Adds fat that keeps the crust tender and short.
- Butter
- Adds fat and flavor, contributing to tenderness in the crust.
The step that matters
Mixing the flour into the boiling liquid. Flour stirred into hot fat and water can form lumps if not blended quickly. Starch in the hot liquid swells, so the dough needs thorough mixing to become smooth and pliable.
“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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