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Dessert

Vinegar Pie

A sweet and tart pie made with sugar, vinegar, flour, egg, cracker, butter, and two pie crusts.

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

Vinegar Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Boil sugar and vinegar together, then cool.

  2. Add flour, egg, rolled cracker, and butter to the mixture.

  3. Mix well and pour into a prepared pie crust.

Assemble and bake

  1. Cover with the second pie crust and bake.

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).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Sugar + vinegartop 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled with the vinegar, a syrupy body to the filling.
Vinegar
Supplies the sharp, acidic flavour that defines the pie.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it sets rather than running.
Egg
Adds structure and helps the filling set as it bakes.
Rolled cracker
Absorbs liquid and adds body, helping the filling thicken.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.

The step that matters

Cool the boiled sugar and vinegar before adding the egg. Hot liquid can scramble the egg instead of blending it smoothly. Cooling first lets the egg incorporate evenly so the filling sets with a uniform texture.

“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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