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Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A pie with a bottom crust topped with rhubarb and sugar‑flour mixture, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Rhubarb Pie

Why it works: Flour and rhubarb 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 ↓

Rhubarb Pie

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.

Assemble the filling

  1. Mix ½ cup sugar and 2 teaspoons flour together.

  2. Sprinkle the mixture over the bottom crust.

  3. Add the cut rhubarb on top, without peeling it.

  4. Sprinkle another ½ cup sugar and 2 teaspoons flour over the rhubarb.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) with two crusts.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + rhubarbtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  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
Forms the tart filling and releases juices that moisten the pie as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the rhubarb's sharp tartness.
Flour
Thickens the juices released by the rhubarb so the filling sets rather than running.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour. 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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