Recipe Frontier Vinegar Pie

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I was reading an article that came up a couple of days ago on a Facebook group I am a member of that mentioned a vinegar pie that used to be consumed in times of hardship (winter?) in frontier areas in the last century.

I was wondering if anyone had ever tried it?

Anyhow, given the subject of the next ingredient challenge is Vinegar, this is a rather timely reading. So I thought I would have a nosey around for recipes, make it dairy free and give it a try. So I have taken the recipes from a number of sources and combined them. Mixed and matched as needed. I thought that if I made 2 open pies (rather than one with a top pie crust) I could try 2 flavourings. So... here goes. Technically there are 3 flavours here - some recipes I have read simply don't add anything extra after the vinegar and are in essence a vinegar custard tart.

Ingredients
500 ml cold water
2-3 eggs (size dependant)
200g light brown (or white) sugar
3-4 tbsp plain flour
Salt
50 ml apple cider vinegar (roughly a touch over 3 tbsp)

Flavour 1
as is - nothing more is added.

Flavour 2
1 teaspoon maple extract (or vanilla extract)
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

Flavour 3
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/6 tsp freshly grated nutmeg

Method

1. Make you pastry (sweet shortcrust or plain shortcrust will be fine), line and bake blind (200C, 400F for 20 mins), then set aside to cool. You should have enough for 2 8-10 inch pie dishes.
2. To make the filling, combine 50g sugar with the eggs in a saucepan large enough to take the entire pie filling and whisk together.
3. In another saucepan, mix the flour and remaining sugar with the water and vinegar. Bring this mixture to boil and whisking until the sugar has dissolved.
4. Take the water mixture off the heat, and slowly add the egg mixture to it, whisking until thoroughly incorporated. Return mixture to heat, stirring constantly, but do not boil.
5. Now comes the choice of flavours. Divide the mixture into 2. Add your flavours (or not - you can stay with just vinegar as the flavour) and pour into the pie crusts.
6. Cover the pie with foil, and bake in a preheated oven at 180C (350F) for 15-20 minutes until the filling is set.
7. Now some recipes say it must be served cold after being allowed to stand overnight, others say serve hot, so I will leave it to you.

Picture to follow tomorrow when I have cooked it.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

This is the Facebook entry I found initially. It's a closed group so there is no point in me linking to it - this is the best I can do.
I have used this and a few others to adapt to a recipe to suit my household. This had a lot of sugar to water, others seemed to have too much water, not enough flour, strayed too far from the original ingredients and so it went on. I do understand that something similar to this is in one of the "The Little House on..." books. I'll see if I can find out more.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

This came as a surprise to both of us. Vinegar Pie. My husband was sceptical to say the least. I had tasted it before it went into the oven (scraping out the saucepan) so knew... It is creamy, it is smooth, it is does not taste of vinegar at all. It tastes slightly of apples. It is light and not overfilling. It is actually rather surprising and rather good.

I think it could have used a touch more vinegar actually and a little less sugar. It is brown because I only had brown sugar available (akin to dark brown soft sugar). It has nutmeg and cinnamon in this version, but I think I preferred the version without. However, my husband preferred the version with.

My husband went back for seconds. That said everything.

 

[Francesca]

@SatNavSaysStraightOn

Looks good ! I have never heard of this pastry ..

There is an old adage, or saying: " The way to a man´s heart, is through his stomach " !!!


Have a wonderful weekend ..