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Dessert

Vinegar Pie

A custard pie made with molasses, flour, sugar, water, vinegar, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Vinegar Pie

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine molasses, flour, sugar, water, and vinegar in a pot.

  2. Boil the mixture.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

  4. Flavor with lemon to taste.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

  2. Bake as you would a custard pie.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + sugartop 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. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides dark color and a deep, sweet, robust flavor to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling as it boils, giving it a set, sliceable body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharp acidity of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Supplies the tart flavor that gives this pie its character.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture before cooling. Flour starch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil, so skipping or shortening this step can leave the filling thin and unable to set properly after baking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour, sugar, 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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