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Plain Pie-Crust

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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

  1. In a large bowl, mix the flour and salt.

  2. Rub in the lard until the mixture is dry and crumbly.

  3. Add the ice water and work into a smooth dough.

  4. Wash the butter and keep it cold and firm.

  5. Divide the butter into three parts.

  6. Roll out the dough and dot with bits of butter.

  7. Sprinkle with flour and roll up the dough.

  8. Repeat the rolling and buttering process until all butter is used.

  9. Chill the dough in the ice for 30 minutes for a flakier crust.

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. 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

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