Rhubarb Macaroon Tart
Updated March 18, 2024
- Total Time
- 1¼ hours, plus cooling
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:8 to 10 servings
- 1(14-ounce/400 gram) bag sweetened, shredded coconut (about 5 cups)
- Butter, for greasing
- 4large egg whites
- ¼cup/50 grams granulated sugar
- ½teaspoon kosher salt
- 1¾cups/420 milliliters whole milk
- ¼cup/60 milliliters heavy cream
- 4large egg yolks
- ½cup/100 grams granulated sugar
- 2tablespoons cornstarch
- 2tablespoons unsalted butter
- ½vanilla bean, split and scraped (or ½ teaspoon vanilla extract)
- ½teaspoon rose water (optional)
- 2cups/400 grams granulated sugar
- ½vanilla bean, split and scraped (or ½ teaspoon vanilla extract)
- 1¾pounds/800 grams medium rhubarb stalks, cut into 4-inch batons
For the Crust
For the Custard
For the Rhubarb
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (10 servings)
638 calories; 38 grams fat; 30 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 4 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 73 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams dietary fiber; 61 grams sugars; 8 grams protein; 160 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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- Step 1
Prepare the crust: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the coconut in an even layer on a large rimmed baking sheet and toast until deep golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes, tossing occasionally and keeping a close eye in the last 5 minutes to avoid burning. Let cool completely. Using butter, grease an 8½-by-12-inch fluted rectangle or a 10-inch fluted round pan with a removable bottom. Line the bottom with parchment and grease the parchment with butter.
- Step 2
In a large bowl, combine the coconut, egg whites, sugar and salt; press into the prepared tart pan. Bake on a rimmed baking sheet until set, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Step 3
Prepare the custard: Set a fine-mesh sieve over a medium bowl. In a separate medium bowl or a large glass measuring cup, whisk together milk, cream and egg yolks. Add sugar and cornstarch to a medium saucepan; gradually whisk in milk mixture until smooth. Add the 2 tablespoons butter and vanilla bean and seeds and cook mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly, until it has thickened and just come up to a low boil, 6 to 7 minutes. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, for another minute. Pour custard through sieve, using a spatula to scrape it through and discarding any solids. Stir rose water into custard, if using, then pour mixture into prepared crust. Let cool slightly, then cover with plastic wrap pressed against the surface of the custard and chill until firm, at least 4 hours.
- Step 4
Prepare the rhubarb: In a medium pot, combine sugar, 2 cups water and the vanilla bean and seeds, and bring to a boil. Simmer until the sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes. Stir in rhubarb, simmer for 1 minute, and remove from heat. Let cool completely.
- Step 5
Gently remove the rhubarb from the cooled pot, letting the syrup drip back into the pot. Top the chilled tart with the rhubarb in a decorative pattern. Lift the tart out of the rim to serve.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
Peggy Carey
Little confused on the final step. First it says to remove the rhubarb from the syrup and let cool on a plate. Then it says remove the rhubarb from the cooled pot letting syrup drip back in. Are you supposed to return the rhubarb to the cooled syrup to further candy?
Edward
I'm confused about steps 4 & 5. Step 4 says to simmer the rhubarb stalks in the sugar syrup for 1 minute, and then says "Remove the rhubarb from the syrup and transfer to a plate to cool completely." But step 5 makes it sound like the rhubarb should be allowed to cool in the syrup and then removed. Can you please clarify? Thanks!
Kirsten
the macaroon recipe makes way more than enough for a 10” tart pan. Also I toasted my coconut for 10 minutes and it was a dark golden, if I had left it in for 25 it would have been black. I used unsweetened coconut and it was perfect. I cut the rhubarb in diamond shapes and made a tessellated pattern I had seen on pinterest or something and it was lovely and easy to cut and eat. We used the syrup for rhubarb collins cocktails! Overall, a decent recipe that isn’t too demanding and pretty tasty.
Jennifer
Another question: I can't imagine trying to cut through the beautiful stalks in order to serve. Wouldn't sliced rhubarb make serving much easier, and less awkward?
shelbi
I did not whisk the egg whites before. I just mixed the the coconut and eggs together until it was well combined. The crust was well incorporated and baked fine.
holly
How do you serve this? Cutting through the rhubarb seems too messy and weird for pie slice shapes
MADD MAKS
Really need about half the coconut. Crust is too thick for a shallow tart pan. I used about half the coconut to make a crust inside a 10-inch spring-form pan, whose higher side allowed the formation of a decent edge to hold the filling. Crust comes from oven rock hard, but softens when filled with custard. I used chopped rhubarb (whole sticks look like red celery to my family), and just drained it to top the finished tart.
Christina
Definitely leave the rhubarb in the poaching liquid until completely cool. To fit the rhubarb into a round pan simply arrange it in a circular shape atop the custard, trimming the center most ends to fit. The smaller parts can be placed into the center or used in between rhubarb pieces to fit. Makes a beautiful dessert. Poaching liquid will be our simple syrup for mojitos!
KERRI
I agree that there is too much coconut. You need to reduce its by 1/4 for the egg amount in order to create a crust that stays together. In addition, you could definitely use 20% more custard and cook the rhubarb for about 4 minutes rather than 1 minute. Tastes great though.
Jen
@ Peggy - I believe you might be confusing "macaroon" with "meringue". For macaroon, you simply mix the raw egg white with the coconut.
Karen
If it were me, I'd add a couple of cardamom pods, or a strip or two of orange zest, or a couple slices of fresh ginger, or some combination thereof, to the syrup at the beginning of Step 4. Then after removing the rhubarb at the end, I'd strain the cooled syrup and reserve it in the fridge for mixing into cocktails or soda water.
Amari
The custard and rhubarb was delicious but the base was honestly pretty yuck. It was thick, chewy, monotonous and completely overwhelmed the delicate flavours of the filling. I ended up chucking half the tart out because the base was so unpleasant. What a shame ! I’ll be using a shortbread crust next time.
Carolyn
I love to make rhubarb pies and crisps and this does look yummy. But slicing whole, stalks into pie slices and only cooking the slices for a minute? Somehow I don't see how the slices of pie will have neat slices of rhubarb on top.
ABG
Meh. This has potential, but not as written. I used unsweet coconut for crust and reduced it to 300g but kept other amounts the same (tho sugar could be reduced to 2-3 TB). This gave a 1/2" thick crust. I highly recommend including the rose water, perhaps double, it really added to the custard and pairs very well with the rhubarb. The custard did not fill the crust, it was 1/2" thick in a standard pie pan. Perhaps 15-20% more is needed. Overall, it's very sweet & the rhubarb was the best part.
sarah
I enjoyed the custard (the rose water was a nice touch!) and I ended up cutting the rhubarb after stewing it to make a geometric pattern on the top. The macaroon crust makes WAY too thick of a crust for this tart, I might half it or make two tart crusts if I made this recipe again.
Augusta Rohrbach
To NYT: it would be really helpful to people who don't venture into certain kinds of recipes (and here I mean, me in the dessert territory) to know that the custard needs 4 hours to cure. I saw 1.5 hours cooking time and thought I could through this together in the late afternoon for a meal at 7...it was still delish. but would have been better to know that I needed that time and might have decided to make it when I could do it in the morning or the day before. Just saying....:)
Emma
Our rhubarb completely fell apart, doesn’t hold its structure at all, made it impossible to make any sort of pattern on the tart let alone making it look like the picture. Followed the recipe exactly. Any suggestions or successful changes?
Ally D
Each component is delicious, but the flavors don't quite match up. I would consider the coconut crust for a key lime or pineapple something. The custard and rhubarb could go in a regular pie crust or maybe graham cracker or pecan crust.
Veronica
A tip for our lactose-intolerant friends (as well as our celiac / gluten-intolerant friends): There’s an easy way to make a very similar dessert without your allergens, and without ingredient substitutions. Use the custard from Melissa Clark’s rhubarb custard bar recipe. Bake the macaroon crust until matte, cool slightly, add the custard, and bake until puffy. Re: greasing the pan, coconut oil is a great substitute for butter, but cooking spray or neutral oil does the job just fine. Cheers!
Fay
Delicious! I was nervous about the crust after reading reviews, but it came out fine even in my 9” tart pan. I used sweetened coconut like the recipe said and measured by weight, not volume. It didn’t look like 5 cups but the 14oz bag says 5 cups right on the front. I overcooked the rhubarb slightly because I couldn’t believe 1 minutes was enough. I guess the lesson of this one is “trust the recipe!”
Fay
Forgot to add that I used the bottom of a 1/4 cup measuring cup to press the coconut into the pan. It helped me create an actual shell to hold custard instead of a giant flat cookie.
Kerry
I really like a lot of things about this recipe, and would totally make an adjusted version again. 1. As others mentioned, way too much coconut! I used 3 cups (a mix of sweetened & unsweetened) also toast the coconut really thoroughly & evenly to get a good crunch on your crust 2. Rose water was fine. It felt a little stuffy for me and I think next time I’d do orange/ginger/star anise something else. 3. Custard should cook longer, trust your instincts!
Paola
This is such a compelling recipe because I love rhubarb and pastry cream and coconut! However, I was a bit disappointed. The crust is VERY thick and chewy, and the rhubarb hard to slice. The custard was a bit runny for me as well. Very open to tips and appreciate others comments! Beautiful looking and the taste was absolutely delicious.
Frantzie Couch
A lovely recipe! Several commenters were confused by steps 4 and 5. I assume the recipe has been re-edited, but it's still not sufficiently clear. Step 4 should read: "Stir in rhubarb, simmer for 1 minute, and remove the pot from heat. Let rhubarb and syrup cool completely." Slicing the rhubarb stalks before putting them on top of the custard would be prettier and make it easier to eat without a knife. Go Samantha!
Sherry
Has anybody tried this crust with key lime filling? I sometimes make a coconut cookie crust, but I think I might give this a try - the lime is perhaps more likely to stand up to the coconut taste - and maybe add a little lime zest to the crust??? I'll report back!
Sherry
I only needed about 2 c of coconut to make a crust for the standard key lime pie recipe. I adjusted other ingredients accordingly - baked crust alone for about 20 minutes and with key lime filling for 20 minutes. Beautiful golden brown crust. Verdict - lime overpowered the coconut even without adding any lime to the crust HOWEVER very pleasant and a lovely easy gluten free option.
Alayna
My husband didn't know how much coconut to get so we had about half the amount in the recipe, which was plenty. As other commenters noted, the elements were delicious but the flavors just didn't meld. Custard was great, but could have used more in proportion to other ingredients. Not going to make again, but may use the techniques in other contexts. *Omitted rose water
Tom Anderson
I found the components by themselves were delicious, but when paired they didn’t not compliment each other. The coconut flavor of the crust completely overwhelmed the custard’s flavor and the rhubarb flavor against the custard’s was not good. I would suggest a shortbread crust with the custard or a chocolate custard with the macaroon crust. And, I would not use the rhubarb with either. I think peaches or nectarines would have been delicious with the custard or chopped nuts with a choco-custard.
Leary O’Gorman
Rhubarb was very under cooked … and instructions said cook for a minute..? Need to cook until soft!
Ileana
The custard remained liquid no matter the amount of cornstarch I added. I still tried to pour it into the crust only for it to go through it and make a whole mess. I don’t know if this is my error, but the crust seemed to be fine, the custard was the major issue.
Sherry
I always make pastry cream (which is essentially this custard) using Craig Claiborne's Pastry Cream instructions except I use a large glass measuring cup for step 2 so I can easily stream in the egg/sugar to hot milk. Never fails and I never strain the mixture because if you whisk constantly it isn't eggy. Good luck! https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1216-craig-claibornes-pastry-cream?action=click&module=RecipeBox&pgType=recipebox-page®ion=pastry%20cream&rank=1
kswl
This is a confusing recipe. How do you cut slices of the tart without ruining it? I thought perhaps you could arrange the rhubarb in a spoke pattern so each slice gets a long piece of the fruit, but if it is still at all firm wouldn’t you have to eat each slice with a knife and fork?
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