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Vinegar Pie

A sweet pie with a vinegar custard base topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Vinegar Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Beat the yolks of 2 eggs with the sugar and flour.

  2. Add the vinegar and water, then cook in a double boiler, stirring until thick.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pre-baked pie crust.

Top and brown

  1. Whip the egg whites and mix in the powdered sugar to make meringue.

  2. Spread the meringue over the pie and brown in the oven.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Flour + vinegartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,652 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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, and whites whip into the meringue topping.
Flour
Starch thickens the filling so it sets firm when cooled.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharp taste of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and a tangy flavor that defines the pie.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thick. Egg yolks and flour thicken as they heat, but overheating can curdle the yolks. Gentle double-boiler heat with constant stirring keeps the custard smooth and sets it properly.

“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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