Rhubarb Pie with Lattice Crust Recipe - ZoëBakes (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep rhubarb pie from getting soggy? ›

Blind Bake Your Crust

Blind baking is a technique that requires partially baking or fully baking a pie crust before adding any filling. This helps your crust bake evenly and prevents you from ending up with a soggy-bottom pie.

In pie crust, you don't want gluten to form so you don't want to mix too much and overwork the dough. For a flaky crust, cut the butter so that chunks of butter about the size of walnut halves remain.

Do You Need to Cook Rhubarb Before Baking? The short answer is no, you don't need to cook rhubarb before baking a rhubarb pie.

Macerate Your Rhubarb With Sugar To Draw Out Excess Liquid

The reason rhubarb pie gets so runny is that rhubarb is 95% liquid, which puts it near the top of watery fruits and vegetables alongside things like melon and cabbage.

Pre-baking is a must if you're looking for a flaky pie crust. It's especially helpful for recipes with a wet center. Recipes for most tarts, pies, and quiches call for pre-baking to ensure that the final product doesn't end up soggy.

Crust dust is a 1:1 mixture of flour and granulated sugar. When baking a pie, especially a fruit pie, a couple of teaspoons of crust dust sprinkled into the bottom of the crust will help prevent the crust from becoming saturated with juicy filling as it bakes.

Non-chilled crust is fairly crumbly and less smooth, which makes it harder to roll out and means it may not look as polished. It will brown more quickly and the final product will likely be tougher, heavier, and more doughy – none of those in a bad way. It will likely have a more intense, butter flavor.

Whether you use a food processor, a stand mixer, or your hands to incorporate the ingredients together, overmixing is a common mistake that leads to a chewy crust. It's tempting when baking to combine the ingredients completely, but the texture should resemble a coarse meal before adding your liquid.

The rule of thumb is not to harvest rhubarb the year you plant it. Give plants time to produce a sturdy root system. The second year after planting, pick only a few stems from each plant. By not picking heavily, you're allowing leaves to generate energy that enhances root growth.

Rhubarb leaves do contain oxalic acid, which can cause issues with joint pain and in high enough doses can also cause kidney failure. Raw rhubarb stems can be eaten in small quantities (although they are very sour) but it's generally recommended that they're cooked.

Why is my rhubarb pie so juicy? ›

Rhubarb pie fillings are often soft and runny. The rhubarb contains so much water, you either have to add too much thickener or coax the rhubarb to release its liquid before thickening it. What's the answer? To solve this problem, I mix the rhubarb with the sugar.

The rhubarb plant is a "heavy feeder." The plant must take in large amounts of nutrients from the soil to produce its large stalks and leaves. Make it an annual practice to supplement the soil with either a balanced commercial fertilizer or rich compost, or both.

Very often flour or cornstarch is used, but in certain instances tapioca, arrowroot and potato starch can also help achieve the desired consistency. Tapioca starch is preferable for products that will be frozen because it will not break down when thawed. We like tapioca in blueberry, cherry or peach pies.

All-purpose flour is an easy solution, as you're sure to have it in your pantry. Since it's lower in starch, you'll use more of it than you would higher-starch thickeners. Quick-cooking tapioca makes filling bright and clear, but also gives it a stippled and somewhat sticky texture.

When thickening a fruit pie filling, there are several options to consider. Very often flour or cornstarch is used, but in certain instances tapioca, arrowroot and potato starch can also help achieve the desired consistency.

You've spent time and effort putting the pastry together, so don't sell yourself short by skipping the final step—the egg wash for the pie crust. The truth is that cream and egg washes are a simple but vital step to improving the appearance and flavor of pies and other baked goods.