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Dessert

Vinegar Pies

A pie made with vinegar, water, butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and lemon, baked with a crust and frothy egg white topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 Pies

4 pies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine vinegar, water, butter, and sugar in a stewpan.

  2. Add lemon for flavor.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Beat the yolks of the eggs with 1 cup of water and flour in a bowl.

  5. Once the vinegar mixture boils, stir in the egg and flour mixture until well cooked.

Bake and top

  1. Prepare the crust for 4 pies and fill with the vinegar mixture.

  2. Bake the pies until done.

  3. Beat the egg whites with white sugar until frothy.

  4. Spread the frothy mixture on the baked pies.

  5. Color the froth in the oven before serving.

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. Egg + flourtop 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the filling as they cook, giving it a set, custard-like body.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the filling's tangy flavor.
Flour
Starch thickens the liquid filling so it holds its shape when cut.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the filling.
White sugar
Sweetens the frothy topping and helps the whipped whites hold their foam.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg and flour mixture once the vinegar mixture boils. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if added to very hot liquid without enough stirring. Adding the mixture to boiling liquid while stirring constantly thickens it evenly, so the filling becomes smooth rather than lumpy.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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