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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie, or Tart

A pie made with rhubarb, sugar, and water, baked in a light crust and filled with custard or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pie, or Tart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Sprinkle a little fine sugar into a basin with the rhubarb pieces.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the rhubarb, sugar, and water.

  3. Simmer gently, shaking the pan often until the rhubarb turns green.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool.

  5. Add just enough syrup to keep it moist.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the rhubarb mixture in a tart dish.

  2. Cover the mixture with a light crust.

  3. Bake until the crust is golden and the tart is done.

  4. Fill the tart with custard or cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Rhubarb + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + rhubarbtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Provides the tart filling's main body and its sharp, acidic flavour.
Common lump sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and, as a syrup, keeps the filling moist.
Light pie crust
Encloses the filling and browns to a golden finish in the oven.

The step that matters

Simmering the rhubarb. Simmering gently and shaking the pan keeps the rhubarb pieces intact while they soften and release juice. Boiling hard breaks them down into mush, leaving a watery, uneven filling.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Rhubarbthe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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