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Dessert

Rhubarb Tart

A baked tart with stewed rhubarb, sugar, cream, crackers, and eggs.

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 Tart

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine the stewed rhubarb and sugar.

  3. Add the cream and mix well.

  4. Crush the crackers and fold them into the mixture.

  5. Beat the eggs and incorporate them into the filling.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a tart shell and bake for 30-40 minutes or until set.

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

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

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Stewed rhubarb
Provides the main fruit flavour and tartness, and most of the filling's moisture.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharp flavour of the rhubarb.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother, softer texture to the filling.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the filling its structure so it holds its shape when sliced.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Egg proteins coagulate as they heat, which firms the filling. Taking the tart out too early leaves it runny, while baking it too long can make it curdled, dry, or cracked.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Rhubarbthe original
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, egg. 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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