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Rhubarb Cream Pie

A pie with a rhubarb custard filling topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,852 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Rhubarb Cream Pie

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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Stew the rhubarb.

  2. Strain the rhubarb through a colander.

  3. In a bowl, combine the rhubarb pulp and juice, sugar, egg yolks, and cornstarch dissolved in cold water.

  4. Cook the mixture over medium heat for one minute, or until it thickens.

Bake the crust

  1. Line a deep pie plate with the pie crust.

  2. Bake the lined pie plate until golden.

Assemble and brown

  1. Fill the baked crust with the rhubarb mixture.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the meringue over the filling.

  4. Brown the meringue in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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

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

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

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

  3. Rhubarb + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together570 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb pulp and juice
Provides the tart flavor and bulk that forms the body of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the rhubarb.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard-like filling and add richness.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling when heated, giving it a sliceable set.
Egg whites
Whip into a foam that forms the meringue topping and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until it thickens. Cornstarch thickens only when the mixture reaches a simmer and is held there briefly, so stopping early leaves a runny filling. Egg yolks also thicken with heat, but overheating can make them scramble.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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