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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie, or Tart

A pie or tart made with rhubarb, sugar, water, and custard or cream filling, topped with light pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pie, or Tart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Remove the leaves from the rhubarb stalks and peel off the thin skin.

  2. Cut the rhubarb into pieces about 1 inch long and sprinkle a little fine sugar into the basin.

Cook the filling

  1. Combine the rhubarb, sugar, and water in a saucepan.

  2. Simmer gently, shaking the pan often until the rhubarb turns green.

  3. Once cooled, place the rhubarb in a tart dish with just enough syrup to keep it moist.

Bake and serve

  1. Cover with a light pie crust and bake until the crust is golden.

  2. Once baked, fill the tart with custard or cream.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + rhubarbtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

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 filling.
Common lump sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and draws out syrup that keeps the fruit moist.
Light pie crust
Forms the covering that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Custard or cream
Adds richness and softens the sharp rhubarb flavour once the tart is baked.

The step that matters

Simmer gently and shake the pan. Gentle heat softens the rhubarb while keeping the pieces whole. Frequent shaking distributes heat and prevents sticking and scorching on the base of the pan, which would give a burnt taste.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Rhubarbthe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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