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Dessert

Vinegar Pie

A sweet pie made with vinegar, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Vinegar Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a pan, combine boiling water, melted butter, sugar, and vinegar; bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in flour mixed with a little water; cook until thick.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then stir in the beaten egg yolks and lemon extract.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into an open pie crust and bake.

  2. Once baked, spread the stiffly beaten egg whites over the top and return to the oven to brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Vinegar
Adds a sharp tang that balances the sweetness of the filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and adds body to the cooked mixture.
Flour
Thickens the filling as it cooks with the liquid.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling; beaten whites form a light topping that browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Spreading and browning the egg white topping. Egg whites must be stiffly beaten so they hold their peaks and stay light. Underbeaten whites can weep or slide off, and they brown best when returned to the oven promptly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter, sugar, flour, egg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, sugar, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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