{"id":266013,"date":"2026-08-15T18:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T18:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/266013\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T18:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T18:20:09","slug":"try-vinegar-pie-at-sidecar-coffee-bake-shop-butterjoint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/266013\/","title":{"rendered":"Try vinegar pie at Sidecar Coffee & Bake Shop, Butterjoint"},"content":{"rendered":"

At Sidecar Coffee & Bake Shop<\/a>, the most-requested dessert has the least appealing name. Vinegar pie \u2014 a simple custard pie made with eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla bean paste and vinegar \u2014 is in high demand at the Oakland cafe and its sister restaurant, Butterjoint<\/a>, next door. Every Thanksgiving, Sidecar makes more than 40 special-order pies and stocks miniature versions for weddings and cookie tables.<\/p>\n

Those unfamiliar with vinegar pie tend to psych themselves out before taking a bite, according to Sidecar\u2019s general manager and head pastry chef Robin Yocum, affectionately known to co-workers and regulars as \u201cRobin En. Wizard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople hear the name (vinegar pie) and say, \u2018Oh, that sounds disgusting,\u2019 \u201d Yocum said. \u201cI think we get a lot of people who want the pie to be bad or want it to be some strange flavor that they\u2019re never going to want to revisit.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Yocum has watched enough first bites to recognize the pattern.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love seeing the reaction every single time,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople will kind of skeptically put it in their mouth. Then, as soon as they bite, their eyes light up a little bit, like, \u2018Oh my God! That\u2019s not what I expected.\u2019 And I think that was what happened when (staff) first tried the pie here (at Sidecar), too, is we all thought, OK, this is a cool pie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yocum began making vinegar pie at Sidecar eight and a half years ago and has been surprised to see it become one of the bakery\u2019s signatures. She first got a glimpse of the pie\u2019s potential at a 2017 Persad fundraiser, where she served exactly 1,036 miniature pies.<\/p>\n

\u201cA couple of bold people came over. And as the night went on, people kept coming back saying, \u2018So-and-so told me I had to come try this,\u2019 \u201d she remembered. \u201cThat was a super cool thing to see word of mouth travel and people already be falling in love with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vinegar pie belongs to a long American tradition of so-called \u201cdesperation\u201d or \u201cscarcity\u201d pies \u2014 desserts made from pantry staples when fresh fruit was unavailable. Dating back to the 19th century, recipes used vinegar to cut the sweetness of eggs, sugar and butter and mimic the acidity of lemon or other citrus.<\/p>\n

Rachel Wharton, author of \u201cAmerican Food: A Not-So-Serious History,\u201d found vinegar pie in Laura Ingalls Wilder\u2019s \u201cLittle House on the Prairie\u201d book series, even appearing in a 1979 cookbook based on the later television adaptation. A variation of it, sugar cream pie (also referred to as desperation pie) is the official state dessert of <\/a>Indiana<\/a>, and Martha Stewart remembers her Polish American mother making it.<\/p>\n

In Pennsylvania, vinegar pie has deep roots in Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, the tradition Yocum drew from for Sidecar\u2019s version. Former Butterjoint owners Trevett and Sarah Hooper encouraged Yocum to create desserts that evoked childhood nostalgia. After making Pop-Tarts, dirt cups and apple hand pies, she began leafing through Pennsylvania Dutch and Amish cookbooks at flea markets and secondhand bookstores, first trying out shoofly and chess pies.<\/p>\n

Though Yocum grew up in West Virginia, vinegar pie wasn\u2019t part of her own childhood. She was heartened when customers recognized it from theirs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the highest compliment to me is when somebody (says), \u2018This makes me think of Grandma\u2019s pie when I was little,\u2019 \u201d Yocum said. \u201cWe get a lot of people remembering their grandparents, which is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike many versions of the pie, Sidecar uses champagne vinegar instead of apple cider vinegar.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gives it more of a lemony kind of taste,\u201d Yocum said.<\/p>\n

The sparse ingredient list remains true to the pie\u2019s roots: champagne vinegar, farm-fresh eggs and vanilla bean paste are combined with sugar, butter, cinnamon and salt, then baked at 200 degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing with the simplicity of the ingredients is making sure that you have the method down pat,\u201d Yocum said, taking care not to overmix or undermix. The finished pie must have a set, molded custard with a nicely cracked brown sugar top.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you mix it right at that sweet spot, the butter and sugar will separate while it\u2019s baking, and then it gives it that nice crunch,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s also a beautiful slice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Sidecar and Butterjoint serve vinegar pie \u00e0 la mode \u2014 Yocum\u2019s preferred way \u2014 with the restaurant\u2019s house-made ice cream to cut its sweetness.<\/p>\n

Sidecar\u2019s four-person kitchen staff has made vinegar pie so often that Yocum now considers it a \u201cbackground task.\u201d But she was surprised when the dessert went semiviral on the Pittsburgh section<\/a> of Reddit about a year ago. A poster argued<\/a> that the pie should be \u201cvenerated\u201d alongside signature Pittsburgh foods like pierogies and the Primanti Bros. sandwich, and scores of commenters agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved that so much,\u201d Yocum said, amused that something \u201cwe\u2019ve been giving to people for such a long time\u201d was something the bakery could still get recognized for.<\/p>\n

For Yocum, the attention is gratifying if it brings more people through Sidecar and Butterjoint\u2019s doors. The restaurants\u2019 Oakland location near the universities, she said, means they work year-round to remain a destination.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really try to keep it as local as we possibly can, and we put as much thought and love into the food as we possibly can,\u201d Yocum said, even if it might not be the food people are expecting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At Sidecar Coffee & Bake Shop, the most-requested dessert has the least appealing name. Vinegar pie \u2014 a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-266013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}