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Dessert

Frosted Rhubarb Pie

A pie filled with chopped rhubarb, sugar, flour, eggs, butter, and topped with a meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 670 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Frosted Rhubarb Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

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

  2. Peel and chop the rhubarb.

  3. In a bowl, mix the sugar and flour, then combine with the rhubarb.

  4. Add the beaten egg yolks and melted butter, and mix well.

Bake and cool

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake until set.

  2. Cool the pie.

Top and brown

  1. For the meringue, beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add the powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the cooled pie and brown in the 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 + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 flavor and bulk that the filling is built around.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the rhubarb.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the juices released by the rhubarb so the filling sets.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the filling as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam to form the meringue topping.

The step that matters

Baking the filling until set. Underbaking leaves the flour and egg yolks unable to thicken the rhubarb juices, so the slice runs when cut. Baking until it is set lets the starch and egg proteins firm up.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, butter. 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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