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Best Rhubarb Pies

A fruit pie made with rhubarb, sugar, eggs, cracker meal, and pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,852 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Best Rhubarb Pies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the rhubarb

  1. Cut the ends off the rhubarb and remove the skin.

  2. Cover the rhubarb pieces with sugar and let sit overnight.

  3. Drain the juice and cook the rhubarb on the stove until it boils.

  4. Once boiling, cook until tender, then remove from heat and let cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. When cool, mix in the eggs, cracker meal, and salt.

  2. Line a pie pan with pie crust, fill with the rhubarb mixture, and cover with a top crust.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until light brown.

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

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

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

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

  3. Rhubarb + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together570 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 flavor and the bulk of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the rhubarb and draws out its juice during overnight standing.
Eggs
Set when baked, binding the filling so it holds its shape when sliced.
Cracker meal
Absorbs excess rhubarb juice, thickening the filling so it does not turn runny.

The step that matters

Cooking the rhubarb until tender before cooling. Rhubarb releases a lot of liquid. Draining the juice and cooking the fruit until tender keeps the filling from becoming watery, which would prevent the eggs and cracker meal from setting properly in the baked pie.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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