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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A fruit pie made with rhubarb, eggs, flour, sugar, butter, topped with meringue.

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 flour 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

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).

  2. Combine rhubarb, egg yolks, flour, sugar, and butter in a bowl.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

  4. Place a few strips of crust across the top.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake until done.

  2. Whip egg whites to make meringue and spread it over the pie.

  3. Brown the meringue in the oven.

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 + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 flavor and the bulk of the pie's filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the filling as they set and add richness to its custard-like texture.
Flour
Helps thicken the filling so it holds its shape when sliced.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps balance its acidity.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping, which browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Brown the meringue in the oven. Meringue can weep or stay pale if underbaked or overbaked. Watch it closely so the sugar caramelizes to a light golden brown without scorching.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

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