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Dessert

Rhubarb Tart—Another Way

A tart made with rhubarb simmered in a thin sugar syrup, baked in a light crust, served with custard or cream.

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—Another Way

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Sprinkle a little fine sugar into a quart basin.

  2. Boil the sugar in nearly ½ pint of water to make a thin syrup. Skim the syrup.

  3. Add the rhubarb pieces.

  4. Gently simmer the mixture. Shake the pan often until the rhubarb turns green.

Assemble and bake

  1. Lay the cooled rhubarb in the tart dish with just enough syrup to keep it moist.

  2. Cover the tart with a light crust.

  3. Bake until done.

  4. Quarter the crust.

Serve

  1. Fill the dish with custard or cream before serving.

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. Sugar + rhubarbtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,852 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb stalks
Provides the tart filling's main body and sharp flavour.
Common lump sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and, dissolved in water, forms the syrup that keeps it moist.
Light tart crust
Encloses the filling and provides a crisp, golden contrast to the soft fruit.

The step that matters

Gently simmer the rhubarb. Rhubarb breaks down quickly if boiled hard, so gentle heat and occasional shaking keep the pieces intact while they soften in the syrup.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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