Rhubarb Custard Pie: Let's Celebrate Summer!

If you do not like rhubarb, then this post is not for you.

I love rhubarb pie. I love Strawberry/Rhubarb jam. I love the bright, summer blend of flavors and the imagery that goes along with it....

Big, leafy rhubarb plants, bursting with flavor!

Delicate strawberries, shiny and red.

And the marriage of the two is wonderful!!!

But this old-fashioned recipe is wonderful in its own rite. I first discovered this recipe in my mother's Betty Crocker cookbook, circa 1959....

And when they reprinted the cookbook on its 50th anniversary, I bought a copy! It was so exciting!

The melding of rhubarb and custard might sound odd, but it's not.

It's amazing.

Custard, hinted with nutmeg, is delicious.

Rhubarb, the bite and the tang, acts like an opposites attract romance.

Put them together and you have a delightfully "New England" Yankee kind of dish.  I had pie crust frozen and fresh rhubarb and berries, and small pie pans, so I played a little! For this week, let's focus on the Rhubarb Custard Pie that just might earn a spot in a Double S Ranch book!


Pastry for two-crust pie

For filling:

6 cups chopped rhubarb
1 3.4 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Mix dry ingredients together, then toss with rhubarb

Line a 9" pie plate with crust. Fill crust with rhubarb/sugar/flour/spice mix.

In a medium sized bowl whisk:

3 eggs
4 tablespoons milk

Whisk completely and pour over fruit/sugar mix in pie crust.

Add top crust. (I like the lattice look, but it can be any kind of top crust.)

Flute edges. Cut slits in top if you used a full crust.

Bake at 400° for about 45-60 minutes, until filling is cooked, and custard seems set. If your crust edges get too brown, consider covering them with narrow strips of aluminum foil before you place in oven.

Trying to cover them at 400 degress is TOO HOT.

You will burn your hands.

Don't do that.

You're welcome.

I will admit I ate far too much of this pie. But it was sooooo delicious! So absolutely fun and yummy, and you can actually pick up pieces of this pie (the custard "sets" the filling) and eat like Danish... Because it holds together so well!

I love fruits of the season! I love playing in the kitchen! And I love re-visiting old favorites and giving them a new life, here in the world of the World Wide Web!

Dave is avidly working on the farm.... And trying to stay ahead of deer and bugs.

In the yard, I've been busily rebuilding an old water feature, a pond and a waterfall I created about fifteen years ago.... And it's coming along! My reward when I'm done writing is to go get dirty!

So much fun in a garden, and it brings me such peace.


And this! This was to celebrate that I discovered I passed the ONE MILLION BOOKS milestone back in the spring!!! HIP HIP HOORAY!!!!! Happy dancing in upstate!!!! This is MacKenzie holding the clutch of balloons from Son #3 who is busily writing his own book in Arizona right now...

And some of us went to Abbott's Frozen Custard to celebrate!!!! Do you see how they're dressed? It was COLD here, LOL! But the cold did not dissuade us from Abbott's!!!!

Newest Abbott's Lover! Magdalena got to make her first trip to Abbott's and share Grammy's banana split! So amazingly good, I got "Best Grammy Ever!" award!!!

And two of the boys jumped in out front to help me dig out old ivy roots... Xavier and Logan, hard at work... and the bonus of this? They created new holes for our froggy friends!!!! We love frogs and toads on the farm!

Almost summer.... the classes with kids are winding down, school days are sporadic with Regents testing for the older kids, and the younger kids are tired because the sun is keeping them up late... and tired kids get a little grumpy!

But with snuggles and ice cream, we can keep the "Grumpy" at bay!!!!

Ruth Logan Herne is still pinching herself over the million book mark, and you can find her pinching herself at ruthloganherne.com or on facebook where she loves chatting with people!!! Or here at the cafe, talking kitchens and food and fun, or over at Ruthy's Place.... And in Seekerville, where a group of wonderful authors loves to talk about God, romance, writing... and really cute heroes!

On the Road Rerun Recipe - Rhubarb Custard Pies

I intended to have a new recipe for you today - a great one, actually - but I'm on the road visiting family. And I really did plan ahead! I had my photos and recipes on a flash drive, all set to upload to the blog when we reached our hotel....but then left the flash drive at home. I know right where it is, sitting on my desk, but that doesn't help when I'm 1200 miles away!

So we'll have to wait for a couple weeks to see the new recipe :(

Meanwhile, though, I'm bringing this fabulous pie out to look at again. Someone my oldest son works with gave him ten pounds of rhubarb last week! I was in heaven...except that we were leaving on this trip east and had no time to bake my favorite rhubarb pie. So I put the rhubarb in the freezer - - 

(easy peasy, lemon squeezee: Wash the rhubarb, trim off the ends, cut into one-inch pieces and freeze.)

- - and I'll bake the pie when we get home.

 Until then, you can enjoy the pie for me!

Rhubarb Custard Pie

How do we know spring is almost here?

You've felt it, haven't you?

On one hand, there are spring bulbs pushing their way through last year's debris, and birds arriving from the south on gentle breezes.

On the other hand, Old Man Winter is holding tight with both hands, refusing to let go.

We'll have a sunny warm afternoon one day, and the next day winter will come roaring back with a biting north wind carrying snow on its tails.

Except as the weeks go by, the wind doesn't bite quite so hard, and the snow doesn't last quite as long....

Don't worry. Spring will come. God promised, and He always keeps His promises :)

But I'm getting antsy. I can't wait to get back to the trails in the Hills!

The view east from Mt. Rushmore - in warmer weather!

Meanwhile, I have the perfect tonic for our Spring Fever.

It isn't rhubarb season for a while, but I saved some of last year's just to make this pie. 

Totally worth the wait!

This recipe is from my mother-in-law's side of the family (don't we just love old family recipes around here?). When she gave it to me, she wrote on the card "Grandma Ebenhoeh." I think she meant her mother - my husband's grandmother - but it could very well be from her mother, as well.

Edith (on the left) with one of her sisters in the Nason House.

Before she married, Grandma was called Edith. She and one of her sisters - I'm not sure which one, but she had eight of them - worked at the biggest house in town as domestics. That would have been in the early 1910's.

After she married John, and for many years after that, she was called Mama by her fourteen children (thirteen survived to adulthood).

My mother-in-law remembers that she was a wonderful cook, and the meals were always plentiful and good on their Michigan farm.

One big trial of her life was World War Two. She had five sons, and two of them enlisted early in the war. You can imagine how hard those years were for her! But they survived the war, and all thirteen children married and had families of their own.

One of her daughters is a regular visitor to the cafe - Hi, Aunt Jane!

And, believe it or not, her birthday is March 20, the first day of Spring!

This recipe is fantastic, and the perfect accompaniment - not cure, sorry - for Spring Fever.

Grandma Ebenhoeh's Rhubarb Custard Pie

Ingredients:

Unbaked 9-inch pie shell (not prebaked - not for this pie)
2 eggs, well beaten
1 3/4 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups rhubarb - fresh or frozen
1 Tablespoon butter

If you use frozen rhubarb, thaw it and drain the juice.

Preheat your oven to 450°.

Get your pie shell ready. If you don't already know how to make your own pie crust, here's the step-by-step demo I did a while back: Jan's pie crust demo. Or you can always cheat and buy those refrigerated or frozen crusts from the store. (I won't tell Ruthy!)

Now, this is not a pudding or cream pie, so don't prebake the crust. Just have it ready for your filling.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, and then add the rest of the ingredients - but save the rhubarb for last so you can get the rest well mixed before adding chunks of fruit.

This is your custardy goodness! Now add the rhubarb (see it in the strainer in the background?) and pour the whole kit and kaboodle into your pie crust.

Dot the top with butter, and it's ready to go in the oven.

There's one little detail I left out when I made my pie. I don't like brown crusts, so I always put strips of aluminum foil around the edge...except this time.

Brown crust. Sigh.

I got over it.

Stick the pie in your oven (450° - remember?) for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350°, and continue baking until it's done. That detail depends on your oven - anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. How do you know it's done? Do the wiggle test. Gently move the oven shelf - if the filling moves like a water bed, it isn't done.

Let your pie cool - at least to room temperature - and then serve. We ate ours plain, but wouldn't it be great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream?

Now it's your turn. What is your favorite spring tonic?

Spring Fever Tonic: Rhubarb Custard Pie

How do we know spring is almost here?

You've felt it, haven't you?

On one hand, there are spring bulbs pushing their way through last year's debris, and birds arriving from the south on gentle breezes.

On the other hand, Old Man Winter is holding tight with both hands, refusing to let go.

We'll have a sunny warm afternoon one day, and the next day winter will come roaring back with a biting north wind carrying snow on its tails.

Except as the weeks go by, the wind doesn't bite quite so hard, and the snow doesn't last quite as long....

Don't worry. Spring will come. God promised, and He always keeps His promises :)

But I'm getting antsy. I can't wait to get back to the trails in the Hills!

The view east from Mt. Rushmore - in warmer weather!

Meanwhile, I have the perfect tonic for our Spring Fever.

It isn't rhubarb season for a while, but I saved some of last year's just to make this pie. 

Totally worth the wait!

This recipe is from my mother-in-law's side of the family (don't we just love old family recipes around here?). When she gave it to me, she wrote on the card "Grandma Ebenhoeh." I think she meant her mother - my husband's grandmother - but it could very well be from her mother, as well.

Edith (on the left) with one of her sisters in the Nason House.

Before she married, Grandma was called Edith. She and one of her sisters - I'm not sure which one, but she had eight of them - worked at the biggest house in town as domestics. That would have been in the early 1910's.

After she married John, and for many years after that, she was called Mama by her fourteen children (thirteen survived to adulthood).

My mother-in-law remembers that she was a wonderful cook, and the meals were always plentiful and good on their Michigan farm.

One big trial of her life was World War Two. She had five sons, and two of them enlisted early in the war. You can imagine how hard those years were for her! But they survived the war, and all thirteen children married and had families of their own.

One of her daughters is a regular visitor to the cafe - Hi, Aunt Jane!

And, believe it or not, her birthday is March 20, the first day of Spring!

This recipe is fantastic, and the perfect accompaniment - not cure, sorry - for Spring Fever.

Grandma Ebenhoeh's Rhubarb Custard Pie

Ingredients:

Unbaked 9-inch pie shell (not prebaked - not for this pie)
2 eggs, well beaten
1 3/4 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cups rhubarb - fresh or frozen
1 Tablespoon butter

If you use frozen rhubarb, thaw it and drain the juice.

Preheat your oven to 450°.

Get your pie shell ready. If you don't already know how to make your own pie crust, here's the step-by-step demo I did a while back: Jan's pie crust demo. Or you can always cheat and buy those refrigerated or frozen crusts from the store. (I won't tell Ruthy!)

Now, this is not a pudding or cream pie, so don't prebake the crust. Just have it ready for your filling.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, and then add the rest of the ingredients - but save the rhubarb for last so you can get the rest well mixed before adding chunks of fruit.

This is your custardy goodness! Now add the rhubarb (see it in the strainer in the background?) and pour the whole kit and kaboodle into your pie crust.

Dot the top with butter, and it's ready to go in the oven.

There's one little detail I left out when I made my pie. I don't like brown crusts, so I always put strips of aluminum foil around the edge...except this time.

Brown crust. Sigh.

I got over it.

Stick the pie in your oven (450° - remember?) for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350°, and continue baking until it's done. That detail depends on your oven - anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. How do you know it's done? Do the wiggle test. Gently move the oven shelf - if the filling moves like a water bed, it isn't done.

Let your pie cool - at least to room temperature - and then serve. We ate ours plain, but wouldn't it be great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream?

Now it's your turn. What is your favorite spring tonic?

Oh, and I almost forgot! Happy St. Patrick's Day!