Skip to main content
Dessert

Rhubarb Pie

A pie made with rhubarb, sugar, salt, nutmeg, flour, and a rich crust, baked until it loosens from the dish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Rhubarb Pie

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick 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 rhubarb stalks where the leaves begin.

  2. Strip off the skin.

  3. Cut the stalks into pieces half an inch long.

Assemble the pie

  1. Line a pie dish with pie crust rolled thicker than a dollar.

  2. Add a layer of rhubarb nearly an inch deep.

  3. Mix the rhubarb with sugar, salt, and a little grated nutmeg.

  4. Sprinkle a little flour over the mixture.

  5. Cover with another layer of pie crust.

  6. Cut a slit in the center.

  7. Trim the edges.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until the pie loosens from the dish.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  4. Rhubarb + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together177 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Large rhubarb stalks
Provides the tart filling that forms the body of the pie.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart rhubarb and helps soften its fibers as it bakes.
Flour
Sprinkled over the fruit, it thickens the juices as the pie bakes.
Rich pie crust
Forms the top and bottom shell that holds the filling while it bakes.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rhubarb, sugar, nutmeg, flour, butter, cinnamon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, nutmeg, flour, butter, 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.

More rhubarb pie recipes

Strawberry 5 See all 198 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes