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Dessert

Rhubarb Tartlets

A pastry tartlet filled with stewed rhubarb, rice, and topped with a cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Wipe the rhubarb.

  2. Cut the rhubarb into convenient lengths.

  3. In a saucepan, combine rhubarb, lemon peel, lemon juice, a little water, and sugar. Stew gently.

Make and bake the pastry

  1. Make short pastry.

  2. Line buttered tartlet pans with pastry. Trim the edges of the pastry.

  3. Fill the pastry with uncooked rice. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F/175°C).

  4. Once tartlets are cooked, remove the rice.

Assemble and serve

  1. Whisk the egg white with cream. Sweeten the mixture with loaf sugar. Chill the mixture if possible.

  2. Fill the pastry with rhubarb. Top with cream.

  3. Arrange tartlets on a hot dish. Serve.

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. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Rhubarb + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Young rhubarb
Provides the tart fruit filling that is sweetened and stewed into the tartlets.
Egg white
Whisked with cream to lighten the topping and give it a softer, airier set.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the whipped topping spooned over the tartlets.
Short pastry
Forms the crisp, buttery shell that holds the rhubarb filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the stewed rhubarb and balances its natural sourness.

The step that matters

Remove the rice after baking the pastry shells. Baking pastry blind with rice weights it so the shell keeps its shape and does not puff. The shells must be fully baked before the rice is removed, otherwise the pastry can collapse or stay soggy underneath the filling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, rice, egg, 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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