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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A fruit pie made with rhubarb, sugar, water, nutmeg, butter, and two pie crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Rhubarb Pie

Why it works: Rhubarb and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 177 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble the pie

  1. In a bowl, mix the rhubarb, sugar, water, and nutmeg.

  2. Place the mixture in one pie crust.

  3. Dot the top with butter pieces.

  4. Cover with the second pie crust and seal the edges. Cut slits in the top crust for steam to escape.

Bake

  1. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

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. Rhubarb + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Rhubarb + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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 the bulk of the pie filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sourness of the rhubarb.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that enriches the filling and helps the top crust brown.
Water
Adds moisture so the sugar dissolves and the rhubarb softens as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cut slits in the top crust. Rhubarb releases steam and juices as it bakes. Without vents, pressure builds under the crust and can lift or split it, and the filling may boil over the edges.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, nutmeg, butter. 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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