Cooking For Engineers

[BAKE808]

There are a few recipes with 1-2 Tbsps of vinegar added to the cookie or pie crust dough. What, if anything, does the vinegar do to the final product? These recipes result in a crispness that lasts longer than similar products without vinegar.

[fwendy]

Acids are usually added to activate any raising agent in the recipe. I can see how this would be needed in a cookie recipe, but not in piecrusts - unless it's not a straightforward pastry dough.

Can't explain why the finished product stays crisper, though.

[Michael Chu]

I've been trying to look this up during the last day to no success. Vinegar does result in a flakier crust - using butter and vinegar, I can make a pie crust without using shortening or lard that is wonderfully flaky (and flavorful). I looked this up about a year ago because I wanted to know why, and I found the answer - but I've since forgotten and I can't find the answer again (at least not during the last day). My guess is that somehow the vinegar acts on the dough to "shorten" it like some saturated oils do. Exactly how, I don't know yet, but I'll try to find out... again.

[BAKE808]

Michael, thank you for researching this for me. I've also been look both online and in food science books and haven't really found a complete explanation either. Please do continue the search, I'd really appreciate "knowing" as opposed to "thinking" I have the answer behind the function of this ingredient.

[DuxIl]

One side effect of including vinegar or lemon juice in your pie crust is that it will effectively prevent browning. Perhaps that would be the main reason, to prevent a crust on a pie requiring longer baking time from browning excessively?

Here's a good reference I found:

http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/food/pietrouble.html

As for what the vinegar is supposed to do, according to the site below, it apparently relaxes the gluten in the dough, to make it more elastic, springier, etc. This would appear to be in direct contradiction to some of the information posted at the pietrouble page above... oh, what a confused world we live in!

http://www.gazettenet.com/dining/entstory.cfm?id_no=11140034