Vinegar Pie

Bored, broke, and feel like baking? This pie is a serious, historical classic- producing a flavor that is not unpleasant, but neither for the faint of heart or unadventurous taster. Vinegar Pie has a ton of variations. Here is one that is easy and inexpensive.

Step 1: Gather your materials

Unless you have the world's most efficient kitchen, it always helps when baking to assemble your materials before the work begins. In many ways, baking is as much chemistry as it is anything else, so not having that crucial ingredient when you need it can lead to a do over real fast.

You'll need:

Pie Crust:

1 1/3 cups flour
Dash Salt
1/3 cups vegetable oil
3 tbsp milk

Filling:

1/4 cups butter
2 eggs
1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tspn nutmeg
3 tbsp vinegar (any kind)

Comments

[hank-cowdog]

3tsp of vinegar is 1 Tablespoon, less acid than 1/2 a lemon. Should make it a little tart, but nowhere near "sour". The vinegar balances the Ph to help the custard set.

[LILLIAN-R]

WOW...rough crowd here! I just want to say that I made a vinegar pie today and loved it! You can read and see it in my blog... http://myrecipejourney-lillian.blogspot.com/2012/08/vinegar-pie.html

[zachninme]

Nice. Although, what is up with the imitation vanilla extract!? Spend the extra buck and get the real thing!

[MsJan]

Your Right...we do not need to be adding more chemicals to our body. We need natural foods. Who needs cancer? GO NATURAL or ORGANIC.

[liminalcriminal]

and also, why is there a picture of vanilla when there's no mention of it in the recipe itself?

[blodefood]

If you substituted the white sugar with maple sugar, it would be a delicacy known as "tarte au sucre" or sugar pie. Or, I suppose you could add a bit of molasses for a darker flavour.

[mguer133]

There is no vinegar in "tarte au sucre", is there? Well not in the original northern France recipe anyway.

Enjoy, looks good!
Mickaël

[cowscankill]

WOW!! YES!! My pie is cooking! i made it with my friend, and instead of vinegar we used honey. this thing will probably be really sweet. i cant wait to see how it comes out :P

[Flumpkins]

Sounds bitter

[ths]

candy is made from vinagar and sugar, so it should be good

[blodefood]

So is farmer-style ginger ale. Apple cider vinegar is used, though.

[infinitysnake]

I've had a version of this pie...I believe it was called 'shaker pie,' one of several my great grandma used to make in a wood oven. (The others were a banana cream pie that was just bananas, cream, and brown sugar, shoo-fly pie, and a lemon pie with sliced lemons which was waay better than it sounds.) "pecan pie would be cheaper methinks" Really? Where I live, pecans are $7 for a half pound bag...that's pretty dear.

[trebuchet03]

hehe.. pecan pie would be cheaper methinks :P Light (or dark) syrup is pretty cheap :P I think I have all of those ingredients though... so I might just try this -- Halloween scary pie fun...

[zachninme]

You could make a ghost thing on it by cutting out a ghost outline in foil, and placing it over the pie. As it bakes, the uncovered parts "burn" more.
(Its not actually burning, it's just cooking more-ish)

[jerbtown]

Brown Sugar pie is real cheap too, but in my area, pecans (all nuts) are pricey. This is definitely po-folk food. I understand people made it in the old days when the apple barrel was empty and all that was left was the vinegar.

[stienman]

Keep in mind, everyone, that ketchup's second main ingredient is vinegar, before sugar. (usually tomato, vinegar, sugar, "natural flavors(right!)", preservatives, coloring) It can be quite good depending on the other ingredients. That said, I'm not going to try it anytime soon...

[austin]

ketchup varys on the ingredients some brands have more sugar than vinegar some have others.

[jerbtown]

I actually have an apple pie recipe around here somewhere that calls for ketchup....

[Ingerson]

Well in proper Chinese cooking sweet & sour flavours were originally just vinegar and sugar mixed together. Tastes real nice in the right mixture

[canida]

Nice instructable! Have you made any variations on this recipe? For those of you who haven't had vinegar pie: 3T vinegar isn't very much, and most of the volatiles will cook off in the oven. Nobody complains about lemon juice, which serves the same purpose in similar pies.

[jerbtown]

I did make one once a couple years back that called for half a cup of cider vinegar. I think I used Braggs.... The vinegar taste in that one was very noticable. Is was also less of a flan and more of a pudding type, like a lemon pie. I liked it, but everyone else that tried it was very much into taking only one bite. :)

[westfw]

Oh my. I believe this dates back to a time when there were not so many varieties of vinegar available. Balsamic vinegar pie. Pomegrannet vinegar pie. Rasberry vinegar pie. Chinese Black vinegar pie. As someone pointed out, nearly ALL your fruit pies tread that acid/sugar balance, so there's no reason to expect badness (and vinegar is made from apples, right?)

[Tool Using Animal]

Apple cider vinegar is made from apples, white vinegar can be made from pretty much any fermentable product, including wood.

[Crash2108]

There's probably enough sugar to even out the flavor.. I'd like to see which kind of vinegar is best. I have tasted sweeter vinegars..

[theRIAA]

thank you for taking your time to write this but... i think im going to throw up