For the Crust
2 sticks of cold butter, cubed
2c. einkorn flour
1T. sugar
1t. salt
Cut cold butter into dry ingredients— if you use regular flour you may need to add ice cold water until it comes together—roll out, put in a pie tin and par-bake at 400 for 10-15 minutes.
For the rhubarb filling
1 c. rhubarb juice
1 ½ c. sugar
6 T. cornstarch
6 egg yolks
2 c. boiling water
2T. butter
Whisk the first 4 ingredients together in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the boiling water and stir until thick. Whisk in the butter. Pour into par-baked pie crust.
For the meringue
6 egg whites
Scant ½ cup of sugar
Whip the egg whites while gradually adding sugar. When stiff peaks form smooth it over your (still hot) pie filling. Bake at 350 until your meringue is golden on the peaks.
What does baking pie have to do with making brooms? Nothing, but I have a whole bunch of brooms that are waiting to be stitched up and they are drying soooo slowly in our summertime humidity. I spent the morning working in my garden and ended up with an armful of rhubarb. If you live in Alaska and you have more than a three-foot square of land to your name, chances are you have some rhubarb. There are lots of things you can do with it. It runs the gamut from muffins to barbeque sauce. I’ve even dehydrated and lacto-fermented mine, in an attempt to find some less-sugary ways to enjoy it, but my family’s favorite is this rhubarb based knock-off of lemon meringue pie.
So, if you find yourself with a surplus of rhubarb on a Friday afternoon… first you should arrange it artfully on your kitchen counter. If you have chickens, you may also have a surplus of fresh eggs right now, because after producing approximately 1.5 eggs a week for the duration of winter your flock of 10 hens is now laying 12 eggs a day. How are they even doing that? Chicken math. It’s complicated. Also, you will need a cup of tea and a sharp knife, because with those two things life is better.
If you had x-ray vision like Superman, and could look down through this lovely countertop still-life, you would see my oven which currently contains a giant sheet of dinosaur chicken nuggets from Costco. There are six kids at my house right now (half of them are mine, the rest are my time-share children) and children are always near the brink of starvation in the summer. Maybe you don’t have kids, or you are new to parenthood, and you are wondering what time-share children are. Friends, if you don’t have time-share children, you are doing it wrong. You need to find you a friend who you get along fabulously with, who happens to also have a partner who works out of town a lot, and as a bonus has similar-aged kids who play nice with yours. Then you just take turns watching one another’s kids. While you would THINK that having 6 kids is crazier than having 3, it isn’t. They entertain each other and you can do stuff like take pictures of rhubarb while your friend gets to drink a cup of coffee in silence and walk her dog at a regular adult pace. It’s a win-win situation.
But back to pie. I’m going to be making mine with Einkorn flour because it’s healthy it’s the only flour left in my house at the end of the month. Oh lordy, it makes pie dough that is sticky AF. You can’t even roll it out. You will have to smoosh it into the pan like a graham cracker crust, which it.is.not. I wish I could get some regular flour for this pie crust, but there aren’t enough seats in my minivan to get everyone to the store. *file that under things you never imagined yourself saying* Even if there were, I wouldn’t do it. That is where the fun runs out on time-share children. Have you ever grocery shopped with 6 kids? That’s how many kids were in my full-time family growing up and my mom left us in the parking lot while she shopped. She was right to do so. Do yourself a favor and use regular flour for your pie dough, okay. Also, never grocery shop with more than two children if you can help it. ALSO, you are going to par-bake your pie crust that you made with REGULAR flour that doesn’t look like a wholegrain nightmare like mine. 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. If you make those dino-nuggets beforehand your oven will be all preheated and ready. Boom.
This is the worst recipe ever so far, and why I make brooms in my basement instead of running a cooking blog. You are going to need to extract the juice from your rhubarb now. You can do that one of two ways. Run it through a juicer if you have one, or chop it up and put it a pot with two cups of water and bring it to a boil. Simmer it down and strain it out. You need 1 cup of rhubarb juice for this recipe.
Okay… so from here on out I basically use the lemon meringue pie recipe from the Joy of Cooking. I am saying that here because I was an English teacher in a former life before motherhood, and I still believe that plagiarizing is WRONG.
Once you have rhubarb juice you mix it with your sugar, cornstarch and egg yolks in a saucepan (save the egg whites, because meringue.) Add heat to your saucepan and stir. Then add 2 cups of boiling water. Keep stirring; it gets thick fast. Stir in 2 T. butter chopped into little pieces, or not, It’s all going to melt.
Pour this filling into your nightmare of a pie crust… just kidding, I know yours looks pretty, and its time for meringue! I make my meringue in one of those copper bowls with a whisk because it makes me feel like a fancy Parisian chef. It also makes my arm feel like it’s going to fall off. You can also make meringue with an electric mixer, and that’s probably a better idea.
When the meringue has stiff peaks that look like tiny seagulls floating in a raging surf it is ready. Pour that the meringue on top of your pie and… done!
Just kidding. You need to smooth that out and bake it. I usually bake my meringue at 350 degrees because the Joy of Cooking won’t give me a straight answer on the matter. I know there is an internal safety temperature for meringue but I don’t stress about it because 1. Fresh eggs from our own chickens, and 2. my kids lick random things like playground equipment and the shopping carts at the grocery store, so I feel like slightly undercooked meringue is the least of our worries. Pro tip: meringue bakes fast so don’t undertake a big project at this stage of your pie. Sit down. Drink your tea that you made that is now cold. Take your pie out of the oven.
It looks good, because meringue covers a multitude of sins—like that ugly, but healthy (and actually pretty delicious), Einkorn flour pie crust…