Rhubarb Custard Pie

Pie plant. Just a few crowns of rhubarb provides weeks of pies, crumbles, puddings with surplus for the freezer. Most recipes using apples or soft fruits can be substituted or cut in with rhubarb.


Remember, the leaves are poisonous. Only use the stalk. Rhubarb is pulled, not cut. Reach down to near the base of the stalk and pull it. The stalk will cleanly come out from the plant crown. Clip off the leaf right there in the garden and pull off any new growth which may be attached at the stalk base.


I usually figure on four cups of filling for a nine-inch pie. Rhubarb cooks down soft so it can stand an extra cup. For one nine-inch pie, I use about six decent sized stalks diced smallish - usually enough to fill the pie dish level to the rim.


I made a custard to go in this pie along with the fruit. If short of eggs, I could have used 2 Tbsps. of minute tapioca with a cup of sugar added to the fruit. I use tapioca for sour cherry pie too. Of course this no longer qualifies as a custard pie.

Rhubarb Custard Pie (one 9-inch pie)

• 4-5 cups red rhubarb diced 1/4 - 1/2 inch size
  
• 1 1/4 cup white sugar
• 3 Tbsps. all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp. butter
• 3 eggs, large
• double crust pastry to fit one 9-inch pie plate
  
• extra white sugar to sprinkle onto top crust
  

Wash, dry and dice rhubarb.
Beat together sugar, flour, butter, eggs.
Add the diced rhubarb.
Prepare the crust.
Put filling into prepared pie plate.


Cover with top pastry, crimp edges together, gash top to allow steam to escape when baking.
I like to sprinkle the top of rhubarb pies with white sugar too.
Bake in preheated oven 400 F x 15 minutes.
Reduce heat to 350 F and bake another 40 minutes or until crust is golden.
Rotate the pie about halfway through bake time.