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Rhubarb Tartlets

A pastry tartlet filled with stewed rhubarb and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Rhubarb Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Stew the rhubarb with sugar gently over low heat.

Make and bake the shells

  1. Prepare short pastry.

  2. Line buttered tartlet pans, trimming the edges.

  3. Fill the pastry with uncooked rice.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until golden.

  5. Remove the rice from the baked tartlets.

Make the cream and assemble

  1. Whisk the egg white with cream.

  2. Rub loaf sugar on lemon zest and sweeten the mixture until frothy, ideally over ice.

  3. Fill each tartlet with stewed rhubarb.

  4. Top each tartlet with the whipped cream mixture.

Serve

  1. Serve on a hot dish covered with a napkin or fancy paper.

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 + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together546 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Rhubarb + ricetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together44 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  5. Rhubarb + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together297 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
Provides the tart flavour and soft filling once stewed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and helps it break down into a soft stewed filling.
Cream
Whipped with egg white to form a light, airy topping for the tartlets.
Egg white
Whisked with cream to help trap air and create a frothy topping.
Short pastry
Forms the crisp, buttery shell that holds the rhubarb filling.

The step that matters

Sweetening the cream until frothy. Whisking the egg white and cream together traps air into a foam. Overbeating can cause the cream to turn grainy or separate, so it should be whipped only until frothy and kept cool, ideally over ice.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, cream, egg, rice. 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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