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Dessert

Rhubarb Mould

A gelatin set dessert made from stewed rhubarb, sugar, lemon juice, custard, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Wash the rhubarb and cut it into pieces.

  2. Stew the rhubarb with 1 tablespoon of water until it becomes a pulp.

Set the mould

  1. Dissolve the gelatine in the water and mix it with the rhubarb.

  2. Add the sugar and lemon juice, and stir well.

  3. Pour the mixture into a mould.

  4. Once set, turn it out and pour cream or custard around it.

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 main flavour and the pulp that forms the body of the mould.
Gelatine
Sets the pulped rhubarb so the mould holds its shape when turned out.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and balances the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rhubarb flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolve the gelatine fully before mixing it into the rhubarb. Gelatine only sets properly when it is completely dissolved and evenly distributed. Undissolved granules or lumps create weak spots, so the mould may not hold its shape when turned out.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, 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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