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Rhubarb Crumble and Cream

Put on your Sunday best for the comforting taste of rhubarb crumble and Guernsey cream.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and cream work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and 297 recipes mention both. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

The recipe

Serves 4
Prep30 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C). Grease a 9-inch (23 cm) baking dish with the knob of unsalted butter.

  2. Cut the rhubarb into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces. Toss with the 2 tbsp golden caster sugar, the juice of the half lemon and a little of its zest. Spread in the dish.

  3. Cut the cold butter into cubes. Rub it into the flour, salt and 200g golden caster sugar with your fingertips until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs.

  4. Scatter the crumble topping evenly over the rhubarb without pressing it down.

  5. Bake for about 50 minutes, until the topping is deep golden and the rhubarb is bubbling and tender when pierced with a knife.

  6. Rest for 10 minutes so the juices thicken slightly. Serve warm with chilled Guernsey cream.

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Rhubarb + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

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

  4. Flour + rhubarbtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Strawberrybetter flavor fit
  3. Raspberrybetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, rhubarb, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).