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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A baked pie with stewed rhubarb, lemon, egg yolks, sugar, and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Rhubarb Pie

Why it works: Rhubarb and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 276 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the rhubarb until tender.

  2. Add the grated rind and juice of the lemon, beaten egg yolks, and sugar.

Bake the pie

  1. Line a pie tin with the crust and fill it with the rhubarb mixture.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is golden brown.

Top with meringue

  1. Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth, adding powdered sugar and vanilla.

  2. Spread the meringue over the top of the pie.

  3. Return to the oven until the meringue is light brown.

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 + vanillatop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 flavour and bulk that makes up the filling.
Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the filling, while whites whip into the meringue topping.
White sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps balance its acidity.
Lemon
Adds bright acidity and aroma that lift the rhubarb flavour.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the egg whites, sweetening and stabilising the meringue.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth. Egg whites must be whipped until stiff so they hold air and form a stable meringue. Under-whipped whites slump and weep, and over-browning in the oven can make the topping collapse or turn tough.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, egg, sugar, vanilla. 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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