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Rhubarb Cream

A sweet rhubarb mixture thickened with cream and eggs, flavored with lemon rind and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 279 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Rhubarb Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the rhubarb purée

  1. Place the rhubarb in a pot with a little water.

  2. Add the sugar, lemon rind, and cinnamon stick.

  3. Cook until the rhubarb is soft.

  4. Rub the mixture through a sieve and let it cool.

Finish the cream

  1. Once cool, mix in the cream or two beaten eggs with 1 pint of milk.

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 + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together279 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 main tart flavour and bulk, softening into a purée as it cooks.
Sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and balances its natural tartness.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the finished dish.
Eggs (in the method)
Thicken and set the mixture, giving it body when used in place of cream.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cooked rhubarb through a sieve. Cooked rhubarb holds fibrous strands and skin that make the purée grainy. Pressing it through a sieve removes these, giving the smooth texture the cream needs.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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