Straight-Up Rhubarb Pie

My mother taught me that rather than mixing the rhubarb together with the sugar/flour mixture, the crust will be crispier if you put a quarter cup of the sugar mixture on the bottom, then add the rhubarb, then the remainder of the sugar mixture on top. The reason is that while baking, the bubbling-hot sugar caramelizes in contact with the bottom and top crusts, making them deliciously crispy. Rhubarb produces a lot of moisture and can make the bottom crust soggy if I mix it all together first.

There is nothing worse than ruining a rhubarb pie with strawberries.

Seven 15-inch stalks of Rhubarb yielded five cups of sliced Rhubarb.

This is a reliable pie recipe that you can follow with confidence. It uses my favorite pie crust recipe that I know from my grandma's Good Housekeeping cookbook circa 1945. But I agree with TMB's review - bake for the first 15 minutes at 425 F. then @ 50 minutes at 375 F. Rhubarb deserves the spotlight w/out the distraction of berries.

I can't resist adding my grandmother's recipe. 5 Cups Rhubarb, 1 1/2 C sugar, 1 egg whipped, 1T flour, 2 T instant Tapioca. Sprinkle a teaspoon or so of super-fine sugar on the bottom crust before piling in the rhubarb mixture and the crust will not get soggy. Dot pie with butter before adding the top crust. Bake at 400 for 50 minutes. No sugar in the pie crust itself.

Only two things could make this better. 1) Make the crust with lard, rather than shortening. 2) Add a bit of orange zest. Those two things would make this a perfect rhubarb pie!

This is not straight up rhubarb pie. it is rhubarb cinnamon pie. one of the very few items my mother could make was rhubarb pie. no other flavors are needed. crust rhubarb and sweeten to taste.

WAY...way...too much sugar. For this amount i use maybe at most 3/4 C. You don't want to kill the natural tang! And no lemon needed if you don't overload with sugar. Also not a cinnamon fan at all. I toss in some cardamom which gives it a little extra something maybe 'mysterious' ? Thanks for tip about putting some sugar on bottom crust. I'll try that. Going out right now to cut some from my rhubarb patch!

The recipe was great but I regret including the orange zest. I must have zested too much (about 3/4 of an orange) and I couldn't taste rhubarb at all, just orange. Word to the wise: If you adore the taste of plain old rhubarb and want a simple & classic pie, I would be careful with zesting. The recipe, however, is wonderful. I loved the crust and the fact that my pie wasn't runny. I would use a little less sugar, because I love a little more sourness to my rhubarb pie.

I never put strawberries in my rhubarb pie. They add zero
I also use tapioca not flour. The tapioca let's the flavor shine and also is less gluey. 1T /cup rhubarb.

I used my own recipe for crust which is all butter. Also I use Minute Tapioca as a thickening agent for rhubarb and berry pies. This was a great recipe. We all loved the cinnamon.

I like butter crusts, and it worked beautifully using an equal amount of butter to the shortening—pulsed in the food processor just 3 or 4 times until about the size of lima beans, chilled in the fridge for an hour before rolling. For the filling, I subbed in tapioca flour, and skipped the cinnamon, adding about half an orange's worth of zest instead. I used only 3/4 c sugar and took the advice to sprinkle about 1/4 of that on the base of the crust before adding the rhubarb. IT WAS PERFECT!

Cinnamon has no place in a rhubarb pie. Never. Ever. Did I say never? NEVER! Orange peel is traditional. And to my mind, a necessary component.

Would be great if you would also use metric measures for your international audience.

Thanks,

Pamela

I totally agree! Rhubarb is so delicious on it's own - strawberries just "dumb it down" in my opinion. Also, don't go crazy with the sugar (I always cut the sugar in any recipe by at least a third), and please, no ice cream!