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Rhubarb Pie with One Crust

A rhubarb pie with a single crust, topped with a frosted egg white glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Rhubarb Pie with One Crust

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Mix cornstarch with a little cold water and stir into boiling water.

  2. Add butter to the mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture over the chopped rhubarb.

  4. Add sugar to the rhubarb mixture.

  5. Add the beaten egg to the mixture.

  6. Add the egg yolk to the mixture.

Make the frosting

  1. Beat the egg white for the frosting.

  2. Mix 2 tablespoons of sugar into the beaten egg white.

Finish and bake

  1. Frost the pie while warm.

  2. Brown the pie in the oven.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

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

  5. Rhubarb + buttertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rhubarb
Provides the main flavor and tartness that the sweet filling balances.
Cornstarch
Thickens the filling as its starch swells and sets when heated in liquid.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the rhubarb.
Egg
Thickens and enriches the filling as its proteins set with heat.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and extra thickening to the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Thickening the filling. Cornstarch should be mixed with cold water first so it does not clump, then stirred into boiling water. The starch granules swell and gelatinize as the mixture heats, which thickens the filling. Keep stirring so it thickens evenly.

Swap the rhubarb

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

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

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