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Dessert

Lemon Rhubarb Pie

A pie with rhubarb, lemon, sugar, butter, and eggs baked in a crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Rhubarb and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 546 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Lemon Rhubarb Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake the pie

  1. In a bowl, combine chopped rhubarb, finely rolled cracker, sugar, butter, egg yolks, and lemon extract.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pie crust.

  3. Beat the egg whites until stiff and spread over the pie filling.

  4. Bake until the top is browned.

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 tart flavour that the sugar and lemon balance.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the tartness of the rhubarb.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they form a meringue topping that browns in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks to form a stable meringue. Under-beaten whites can weep or collapse, and any trace of fat or yolk in the bowl will stop them whipping properly.

Swap the rhubarb

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Rhubarbthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, lemon. 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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