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Dessert

Vinegar Pie

A sweet and tart pie with a buttery filling flavored with vinegar and nutmeg.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Rub flour and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add egg yolks and mix until smooth.

  3. Incorporate butter, then gradually add boiling water while stirring well.

  4. Add vinegar and nutmeg to the mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Pour the filling into a pie crust and bake.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff and sweeten them.

  3. Spread the sweetened egg whites over the top of the pie.

  4. Return the pie to the oven and bake until the top is delicately browned.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the filling and enrich it, giving it a custard-like body and color.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Egg whites
Whipped and spread on top, they form a light meringue that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, silkier texture in the filling.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that gives this pie its tangy flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water gradually while stirring. Pouring hot liquid in too quickly can scramble the egg yolks. Adding it slowly while stirring tempers the yolks so the filling stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Capersfits about as well

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