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Dessert

Rhubarb or Pie-plant Pudding

A baked pudding made with chopped rhubarb, sugar, sour milk, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Rhubarb or Pie-plant Pudding

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Chop the rhubarb finely and place it in a pudding dish.

  3. Sprinkle sugar over the rhubarb.

Make and bake the pudding

  1. In a bowl, mix the sour milk and eggs to create a batter.

  2. Pour the batter over the rhubarb and sugar in the dish.

  3. Bake for 30-40 minutes 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.

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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Rhubarb + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together294 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 fruit base that contrasts with the sweet custard topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and draws out some of its moisture as it sits.
Sour milk
Supplies acidity and liquid to form the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set into a tender, custard-like layer.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Eggs set as they are heated past their coagulation point, so the pudding needs to bake until the center no longer jiggles. Underbaking leaves a runny layer, while overbaking makes the eggs tough and grainy.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, 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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