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Dessert

Rhubarb Mould

A jellied dessert made from rhubarb, sugar, lemon, and gelatin, set in a mould.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 117 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Rhubarb Mould

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rhubarb base

  1. In a quart basin, combine rhubarb, water, sugar, lemon juice, and lemon rind.

  2. Boil gently, stirring occasionally to prevent burning, until the mixture thickens.

Add the gelatine and set

  1. Soak gelatine in water while the rhubarb is boiling, then dissolve it in boiling water.

  2. Stir the dissolved gelatine into the rhubarb mixture and beat briskly for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Add almond flavouring and cochineal to the mixture.

  4. Pour into a mould soaked in cold water and place in a cool area to set.

Serve

  1. Serve on a glass dish with cream, Devonshire cream, or custard.

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 + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 main flavour and bulk of the mould, and its natural tartness balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the rhubarb thicken into a soft, spoonable base.
Gelatine
Sets the mixture into a firm, sliceable mould as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rhubarb flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the dissolved gelatine into the rhubarb. Gelatine must be fully dissolved and mixed evenly before pouring, or it can set in lumps and leave the mould unevenly firm.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, almond. 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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