Rhubarb Pie is refreshingly tart, some would say almost mouth-puckering. I decided to add a crumb topping to sweeten up this pie a bit, although it still has a pleasant tanginess. Find the recipe HERE.
I used the Rhubarb Pie recipe from my favorite pie cookbook The Four & Twenty Blackbirds Pie Bookwritten by Emily and Melissa Elsen, two sisters raised in South Dakota who migrated to New York and opened a bakery in Brooklyn. I love their approach of using seasonal fruit in inventive ways and combinations. However, they are purists when it comes to rhubarb pie: rhubarb is the star of the show.
I went out in search of local rhubarb one Saturday morning. First, I stopped at Percy Thomson’s produce stand in the middle of Bethlehem. I ran into th farmer there, who told me they were out of rhubarb but he’d noticed a stand a few miles down the road that had a produce table in front of the house.
I took a ride and found the house, but there was no table of produce. A woman opened the front door and I recognized her, a retired postal worker here in town. I called out to her from the car. She told me she didn’t have any rhubarb, but if I turned around and went back up the hill I’d just come down, right past the crossroads, there was rhubarb for sale at a house there. And she was right. I stopped, opened the cooler, found freshly-cut rhubarb wrapped in newspaper and tied with green yarn for $3 a pound.
I love living in a small town.
Frozen rhubarb can be interchanged with fresh. Some bakers prefer it. The Elsen sisters recommend, if time allows, to wash, chop, and freeze rhubarb at least one day before baking to release excess moisture. Thaw in a strainer before baking but don’t squeeze it or it might dry out too much. The rhubarb season is short, so if you end up with excess, chop it up and throw it in the freezer.
Happy baking! Spread the pie love.
P.S. You may notice in the photo that I did not use a flour crust for this pie. I decided to try a gingersnap-crust and was not happy with thinness of the press-in crust, so I did not include it in my recipe. However, if you have a good gingersnap crust, give it a try.
