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Dessert

Vinegar Pie

A sweet pie with a vinegar-flavored filling made from flour, water, sugar, butter, nutmeg, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Vinegar Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Bake a thin pie crust.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour with a little molasses.

  2. Add vinegar, water, sugar, butter, and nutmeg to the mixture.

  3. Pour the filling into the prepared crust.

Bake

  1. Bake until set.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

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
Thickens the filling so it sets into a sliceable custard rather than runny liquid.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp, tangy flavour that defines the pie.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the filling.
Molasses
Adds depth of flavour and colour, and is mixed with the flour first to help it blend smoothly.

The step that matters

Mix the flour with molasses before adding liquids. Flour clumps when added directly to liquid. Blending it first with molasses into a smooth paste lets it disperse evenly, so the filling thickens uniformly as it bakes.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, flour, sugar, butter, molasses. 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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