Rhubarb custard pie is an iconic summer dessert to melt in your mouth. All you pie lovers out there will love the flaky crust with sweet and sour filling of this pie. An old European recipe that came to us through New England, it has a Southern vibe to me that conjurs pictures of big front porches, iced tea, and pie with ice cream. Making this pie gluten free and dairy free is easy and crowd pleasing.
As I talked with a neighbor, she mentioned rhubard custard pie was her favorite way to eat rhubarb. I made a mental note to check it out. I had never heard of rhubarb cream/ custard pie and was surprised when I found the recipe in my old recipe tin. The recipe card was written in my husband’s handwriting from his collection of favorites before we had ever met.
I joke that I married him for his Kitchen Aid mixer! He is a wonderful cook and we all love it when he is the one who is in the kitchen. Something smells so much more delicious when he does the cooking. So I know that any of his recipes that he has squirreled away are going to be a treat.
This pie filling is easy to convert to dairy free and for the crust I used our deluxe rich gluten free pie crust. If you need a grain free crust, you can check out our grain free pear tart and double that crust recipe. Even better, it was amazing for breakfast the next day. Serve warm with dairy free whipped cream or ice cream. We hope you enjoy!
Rhubarb Custard Pie Ingredients
Pie Crust
If choosing to use white vinegar, make sure it is gluten-free.
Pie Filling
Tips
For the crust: take your time cutting in the lard. Make sure you have the lard evenly distributed throughout the dough to ensure a flaky crust. Of all the steps in pie crust making, this is the point to focus on.
Dough should be like fresh craft dough, easy to roll out and stays together.
When you are rolling out the pie crust dough, use brown rice flour liberally on the wax paper and on top of the pie dough to prevent sticking to the top wax paper sheet.
After rolling out dough, remove top wax paper, hold the dough and bottom wax paper and flip over onto your pie plate. Then just slowly remove the wax paper. Much easier than trying to transfer the dough off of the wax paper and hand lifting it into the pie plate.
It helps to fold strips of dough in half to help in the weaving process. Strips should overhang the pie plate edge. Extra overhanging strip dough beyond about 1/2 inch can be pinched off.
For Filling: If you are using frozen diced rhubarb, make sure it’s thawed and drained before usiing.
For the butter topping, I use Earth Balance dairy free alternative and So Delicious whipped cream for topping pie to serve. Minimalist Baker has a simple and easy dairy free whipped cream recipe that we also use and really like.
While baking pie: Check half way through baking time to make sure the crust isn’t getting over done. You can use store bought crust protectors or lay aluminim foil on the edges to protect crust edge while the center of the pie continues to bake.
To use aluminum foil, just fold a square of foil in quarters. Then tear out a rounded portion at the fold corner of the foil. When you open the foil, you will have a pie shaped hole in the middle of the foil. Gently lay the foil onton the pie to block the heat from the edges. You can see that I didn’t take the time to make sure the foil was all the way to the back of the pie crust in the photo below. The crust was good and truelly cooked by the end.
Gluten Free and Diary Free Rhubarb Custard Pie
Course: DessertCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Medium8
servings30
minutes50
minutesSweet and tangy with a flaky crust, this gluten free pie is all about the summer picnic.
Ingredients
Crust: 1 1/2 C. Brown Rice Flour
1 1/2 C. Tapioca Starch
1 tsp. Salt
1 1/2 tsp. Xantham
1 1/4 C. Lard
1 Egg, beaten
5 Tbs. Cold Water
1 Tbs. Cider Vinegar
Filling: 1 1/2 C. Sugar
1/4 C. Brown Rice flour
1 tsp. Nutmeg
4 C. (1 pound) Rhubarb, diced
2 Tbs. Butter or Dairy-Free Alternative
Cinnamon to sprinkle on top crust (optional)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- For pie crust: Combine brown rice flour, tapioca starch, salt, and xantham in a medium sized bowl.
- Cut in lard with a pastry cutter until well distributed.
- In a small bowl add slightly beaten egg, cold water, and cider vinegar and mix with fork. Then add this liquid to the flour mixture.
- Mix and plump dough with a fork until it sticks together. Divide dough into two equal balls.
- Dust a sheet of wax paper with brown rice flour and hand flatten one of the dough balls in the middle. Dust the top of the dough circle, add a top piece of wax paper and roll out with rolling pin until larger then your pie plate.
- Remove top wax paper, line up rolled out dough to the edge of your pie plate. Sandwich dough and bottom wax paper in your palms and quickly flip dough and wax paper over onto the pie plate. Carefully peel off the wax paper. Fit dough onto bottom of pie plate and pierce a few times with a fork to create vent holes in the bottom of the crust.
- Repeat rolling out second dough ball. Cut into 1 inch strips, set aside until after pie filling is made and put into pie dish.
- For Filling: Combine sugar, flour, and nutmeg into medium sized mixing bowl. Add the slightly beaten eggs and rhubarb and hand mix with a large spoon until combined.
- Fill pie plate with filling, drop the butter or butter alternative onto top of filling to dot surface of filling.
- With second crust strips, fold strips in half and lay in spaced lines along one half of the pie. Alternate over and under with the second layer of strips in the opposite direction making sure all strips overlap the pie plate edges to make a lattice crust.
- Pinch off extra strip dough the overhangs beyond 1/2 inch past the edge of the pie plate. Pinch top strips with bottom crust to make a decorative edge. Sprinkle top of pie with cinnamon.
- Bake for approximately 50 minutes until filling is bubbly and crust is golden. Check pie halve way through baking and cover edges of pie with foil or crust protectors if the crusts are getting done before the middle of the pie.
- Cool on wire rack and serve warm. Store extras in the refridgerator.
Notes
- To make this pie dairy free: use butter alternative such as Earth Balance and dairy free whipped topping such as So Delicious whipped cream. You can also make your own whipped cream like we do quite often. It is simple and easy. Here is a great recipe to use from Minimmalist Baker.
