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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A pastry crust filled with rhubarb, sugar, flour, lemon rind and juice, topped with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Rhubarb Pie

Why it works: Flour and rhubarb match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 670 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mix ½ cup sugar and 1 heaping teaspoon flour together.

  2. Sprinkle the mixture over the bottom crust.

  3. Add the cut rhubarb on top.

  4. Sprinkle another ½ cup sugar and 1 heaping teaspoon flour over the rhubarb.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 45 minutes.

  2. Alternatively, stew the rhubarb.

  3. Sweeten the rhubarb.

  4. Add lemon rind, juice, and egg yolks.

  5. Bake the mixture.

  6. Frost like lemon pie.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + rhubarbtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rhubarb + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Provides the tart flavour and bulk that gives the pie its body.
White sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps draw out its juices.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the rhubarb as the pie bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the filling set as it bakes.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweetness of the filling.

The step that matters

Bake the mixture. Baking long enough lets the flour thicken the rhubarb juices and the egg yolks set. Underbaking leaves a runny filling, which is hard to fix once cut.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, rhubarb, egg. 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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