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Dessert

Rhubarb Meringue

A baked rhubarb pudding topped with stiff meringue, served cold with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Rhubarb Meringue

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.

Make the rhubarb base

  1. Heat the stewed rhubarb in a saucepan. Sweeten to taste.

  2. Add the butter, bread crumbs, lemon juice, and lemon rind. Mix well.

  3. Remove from heat. Stir in the egg yolks.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a pudding dish. Set aside.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until stiff. Gradually add the sugar to the beaten egg whites.

  2. Spread the meringue over the rhubarb mixture.

  3. Place the pudding dish in a pan of hot water. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 10-15 minutes.

  4. Check for doneness with a broom straw; it should come out clean. Serve cold with 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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  5. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Stewed rhubarb
Provides the main fruit body and tart flavor of the pudding.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam with sugar to form the light, browned meringue topping.
Dried bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and give the pudding body and a soft, cakey texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing tenderness and flavor to the base.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the meringue and stabilizes the whipped egg white foam.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Whites must be whipped to a firm foam before sugar is added gradually; under-beaten or greasy whites will not hold up, and the meringue can weep or collapse in the oven.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, bread, lemon, egg, 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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