Desperation Pies: Weird Ingredients But Still Tasty!

Good afternoon everyone! Ok so for today's episode of Idiot Proof Cooking I'm definitely making some weird stuff in the kitchen. A few weeks back, I stumbled across someone making water pie on TikTok and I was fascinated by it. From there I fell into a deep dive on "desperation pies", where they came from, and why they were made. Some fascinating reads, but it got me thinking that I should try making some for the channel. So with that in mind, I decided to try making water pie, vinegar pie, and sugar pie.

Now the point of desperation pies was to make them with ingredients you'd commonly have in your household during desperate times like during the great depression. That is where the water pie originates from. Meanwhile the vinegar pie originates from the southern U.S, and apple cider vinegar was used as a substitute for citrus during the off season. Lastly sugar pie originates out of Quebec, here in Canada, and similar to the other two, was made to use ingredients you'd have in your household or farm.

But really, these were fascinating recipes. They were super easy to make, and I loved 2 of the 3. One of them was just ok. Check out the video to find out which ones.

So check it out and let me know what you think.

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Pie Pastry Ingredients:
-5 1/2 cups all purpose flour
-1 Tsp baking powder
-1 Tsp kosher salt
-1/4 cup brown sugar
-1 lb lard (room temperature)
-1 large egg in measuring cup
-1 Tbsp white vinegar
-enough water to fill to 3/4 cup line with egg and vinegar

Water pie ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups water
-4 Tbsp all purpose flour
-1 cup white granulated sugar
-2 Tsp vanilla extract
-5 Tbsp unsalted butter cut into small cubes

Vinegar pie ingredients:
-4 large room temperature eggs
-1 cup white granulated sugar
-1/2 tsp kosher salt
-6 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
-2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
-1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Sugar pie ingredients:
-2 cups brown sugar
-1 12oz can evaporated milk (or sweetened & condensed milk if you want to screw it up like me)
-2 large room temperature eggs
-1 Tsp vanilla extract
-3 Tbsp all puporse flour
-3 Tbsp unsalted butter cut into small cubes.

Music by Scandinavianz- Hiking

#sugarpie #vinegarpie #waterpie

[dtaylor]

My grandmother worked in a restaurant in Erie making pies during the depression through the 50's. She made water pies but called them Nothing Pies and used a slice of bread as a thickener, no flour, cornstarch or egg. Just sugar, bread slice and water.

[Truthandlight]

Few people realize that baking is actually just science and focused on what they didnt have instead of what they did. What you called vinegar pie was custard pie. Sugar pie was actually fudge and the water pie was more of a flan. The butter is the dairy. Still awesome - have you heard of the sprite or 7up pie?

[akshatasrecipes]

Loved this share so much, thanks so much for this, .stay connected and posts more lovely videos, always enjoy watching your channel, Bestest of wishes Akshata.

[lindacsmith]

I think vinegar pie is also chess pie. Cool pie demo, really enjoyed it.

[RhubarbAndCod]

I'm not only fascinated by food but also (and maybe even more so) food history! This is right up my alley! I loved this experiment... I'm tempted to try out that vinegar pie... I'm assuming the sweetness of the sugar pie wouldn't have been so strong working with evaporated milk, and what that would have done to the flavour and texture of it... whether the butter would have incorporated more?? Anyway, all super interesting and great to watch. Thank you for this brilliant video in food history adventures!

[JimsKitschKitchen]

I’ve had the water and vinegar, but not a sugar pie- may need to give that one a try. It’s nice to hear you put them in rating order. I really will need to try sugar pie with condensed milk

[mariod]

Interesting, here in Montreal we make our sugar pies with only brown sugar and 35% cream....the vinegar pie is ''custard Pie'', made every Christmas but I had never heard of Water pie!!! Good video.

[kathywolf]

An old folk here...my grandma used to make water pie and when it was done baking she would put some granulated sugar and cinnamon on top or some sort of fruit....

[GingerSnapKitchen]

That’s a lovely trio of pies! Very nicely done!

[kraftykel]

Congrats! on creating a new style of sugar pie; by substituting sweetened condensed milk for the evaporated milk. Good work.

[tonyasalo]

Hi love channel. I have a cook book that has these in there as well as others like shoo fly.pie. It was a gift my grandfather.got my grandmother when she was 16 . They married 2 years later. Oh and it is called search light cook.book. supposed to be recipes from guiding light on the radio? Pop always got her great cook books.

[Maikoh]

I've seen the water and vinegar pies before, I've been so curious to try these! lol they came out great!

[RobertxJenks]

I have had a different version of sugar pie, it has no eggs in the crust or the pie and are made using the white sugar and heavy cream. The vinegar is like the ones I have had and like, never had water pie.

[janetmcabee]

If things keep going like they are we all might be eating like that again.

[JetstreamGW]

Sooo... Have you ever made the sugar pie with the evaporated milk? Cuz ngl, replacing it with sweetened condensed seems like it'd be nearly inedible. Maybe you've got a higher sugar tolerance than me but... yikes.