Skip to main content
Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A sweet pie made with soaked dried rhubarb, sugar, spices, egg, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Rhubarb Pie

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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 rhubarb

  1. Soak the dried rhubarb in 2 cups of water for 8 to 12 hours.

  2. Cook the rhubarb in the same water for 30 minutes.

  3. In a bowl, mix the cooked rhubarb with sugar to taste.

Make the filling

  1. In another bowl, combine the egg, ½ cup sugar, salt, flour, spices, and milk.

  2. Stir in the rhubarb mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour into a pie crust and bake at 400°F (200°C) 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.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried rhubarb
Provides the main body and tart flavour of the filling.
Egg
Helps the filling set into a firm custard as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when sliced.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, and sets with the egg into custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and balances its acidity.

The step that matters

Bake until set. The egg proteins in the milk-based filling coagulate as they heat, which thickens the custard. Underbaked filling stays runny and will not hold a clean slice, while overbaking can make the custard curdle or weep.

Swap the rhubarb

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, ginger. 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.

More rhubarb pie recipes

Strawberry 5 See all 198 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes