You Should Try Baking With More Vinegar
How & why to use more of this underrated ingredient
Sometime last year, I picked up a not-so-ordinary bottle of vinegar from one of my favorite little markets out in Hudson. It was made by a company called Tart, in Brooklyn, and the label said “Oroblanco”. I had no idea what that word meant or what to do with it.
So naturally, I bought it.
Turns out Oroblanco is a hybrid citrus, similar to a grapefruit. And also turns out, it makes a delicious vinegar. But why? How is it possible? Can any fruit be vinegar? Turns out, pretty much yeah.
The most obvious application for a fruit vinegar is probably a salad dressing, but I wanted to explore something more creative. Vinegar is an acid, I figured, so it only made sense in my silly little logic brain that I could replace another acid with it without a hitch. My first thought was of course lemon juice, and the first food that came to mind after that was a lemon poppyseed muffin. So, pretty naively I subbed the lemon juice in my go-to muffin recipe 1:1 with vinegar, and I ended up with sad, deflated muffins. I realized that vinegar has much more leavening power than citrus juice, and so they rose too high too fast and then sunk pretty remarkably. I was a little disappointed, until I bit into one. The flavor was incredible. It was subtle, but so bright and clean and delicious. A few weeks later I made some adjustments and sold them at our farmer’s market, and although I had to explain to every single person what the hell they were, folks really loved them. After a few more months of workshopping, I also had a recipe ready to share for home bakers (more on that soon!).
After doing some more research, I found an entire world of types of vinegar and uses for it them that I had previously been totally oblivious to. Off the top of my head, I can’t really think of an ingredient more prolific. Since this experience, I’ve been using it much more. I wanted to share this to encourage you to try and find a new type of vinegar, bring it into your home and incorporate it into your food making. It’s really a lovely thing. Below are some ideas for you.
The aforementioned muffin recipe is going to debut in a community cookbook that I’m honored to be a part of, made by my good friend Erica who owns Ten Mile Table in Wassaic, NY. I will post the recipe here as well, but it’ll be available only to paid subscribers, as I’d like to encourage folks to go purchase that cookbook and support some really amazing local food makers. I’m planning on selling them at my market table this year, and they’ll be available at the Ten Mile Table shop.
A few ideas:
Add a small amount of white vinegar to cake recipes for an airier texture and potentially more lift
Use a citrus vinegar in place of citrus juice in a baking recipe. Cakes & muffins are the most approachable place to start
Use a citrus vinegar in place of milk in a sugar glaze or icing
Add a few tbsp of any vinegar to a glass with some iced seltzer & sweetener (or just some tonic water) for a shrub tonic
Some fun vinegars I’ve come across recently:
- Acid League Strawberry Rose Vinegar (affiliate link)
- Tart Golden Vinegar
- Sunset Cultures Barbera Vinegar
- Yiayia & Friends Yellow Fruit Vinegar
On common household vinegars:
In my experience thus far, wine vinegars (red wine, white wine, etc.) are typically best saved for savory applications, not baking.
Apple cider vinegar is great for baking, but the flavor is strong. Make sure you like it if you want to try using it in baked goods. I used it to make blueberry muffins and they were delightful.
White vinegar works in almost every application I’ve tried.
One more thing: Tart has a vinegar making workshop in May at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that I’d love to attend, but I’ll be out of town. It sounds really fun, and it comes with all the ingredients and materials you need to make more at home, plus lunch. Just wanted to put that out there.
I enjoyed writing this little ingredient spotlight & I tend to get hyper-fixated on different foods pretty often, so I’ll likely be doing plenty more of these in the future. Let me know if you have any ideas for vinegar or another ingredient you’d like to know more about.
Happy baking, and look forward to that muffin recipe. Out soon.
Very cool and a fun little rabbit hole.
I got that strawberry rose acid league vinegar on a whim ages ago — thank you for reminding me to play with it!!!