1 1/4 cups white sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter, chopped
Preheat oven to 450º F. Combine sugar and flour. Sprinkle 1/4 of it over pastry in pie plate. Roll top crust, cut out heart. Heap rhubarb in pie plate, keep frozen. Sprinkle with remaining sugar and flour, pat into a mound. Dot with butter. Cover with top crust and crimp sides. Place pie on lowest rack in oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350º F. Move to top rack and continue baking for 40 to 45 minutes.
Pie Crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter, chilled and diced
4 to 6 tablespoons milk
In a large bowl, combine flour and salt. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in milk, a tablespoon at a time, until mixture forms a ball. Divide in half and wrap in plastic and refrigerate. Mix the flour and sugar for the pie in the same bowl. Roll cooled dough out to fit a 9 inch pie plate. Place crust in pie plate. Press the dough evenly into the bottom and sides of the pie plate. Roll out the top crust before adding the rhubarb.
If using a food processor, pulse the dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add milk one tablespoon at a time and pulse. Empty on a lightly floured surface. It will be crumbly...do not add more liquid. Carefully press into two balls. Do not overwork pie crust. Keep everything cold.
If you use fresh rhubarb, reduce flour to 1/2 cup. The water from frozen rhubarb with make the pie runny if you don't add extra flour. Make sure the flour is cooked before removing the pie. The heart makes it easy to see inside the pie. Cover edges with foil to keep from burning.
~♥~
I never cared about cooking growing up, but the one thing I enjoyed watching
and helping mom make was pies. Partially so I could eat the raw dough and
partially because I thought it was fascinating. She let me feel what the dough
was like and explained that it was important in making pie crust to know the
right texture. Pie crust is very tricky to make. The recipe is simple, but you
really need to work with someone to learn the finer skills
The only desert I remember mom making was pies. She had a huge rhubarb patch
under her grapevine that divided the house from her garden lot. She always had a
freezer full of rhubarb and shared it with the family. Mom didn't have a written
recipe for her pies, but after watching her for years I learned a lot of her pie
making skills.
With the frozen rhubarb mom gave me I was able to make a lot of pies for my
family. This is my version of Rhubarb Pie. You can see I like lots of sugar and
butter. I don't remember ever having butter in the house growing up. With mom
going through the depression and World War II rationing, she was also frugal in
her use of sugar. After the government propaganda against butter, she believed margarine was
good for you. - Brenda Dawson
