The best rhubarb custard pie I have ever eaten was set down in front of me by a woman in a small apron at a counter seat in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Her name was Mrs. Beiler.
She lived in the apartment over the restaurant, and her grandson Eli cooked the dinner shift downstairs. It was a Tuesday in late May.
I had driven up that morning on a slow loop through Lancaster County. No real plan. Just looking for the kind of place where the menu is six things and the coffee comes without you asking.
This was that place. Eight stools and a pie case behind the register.
Mrs. Beiler did not actually work there. She had wandered down in her slippers, set a slab of pie in front of me, and said, “You eat this first. Then the soup.”
A Counter Seat in Lititz
I had been planning to drive on to Hershey by sundown. I stayed three hours instead.
She told me the pie was her mother’s recipe and her mother’s mother’s before that. The custard was barely set and the rhubarb still had a bite to it.
The crust was the kind of flaky that only happens when someone has been doing the same motion with their hands for sixty years.
I asked Eli if I could write it down. He laughed and said his grandmother would tell me herself, but only the parts she felt like telling.
So we sat at the counter, the three of us, and she walked me through it in pieces, in between scolding him about the soup salt. I scribbled on the back of the placemat.
I still have it. The corner is greasy.
What Mrs. Beiler Told Me About Rhubarb Custard Pie
The first thing she said was that the pie is not strawberry-rhubarb and not plain rhubarb either. The egg and flour custard is the whole point.
Thickening fruit juice with cornstarch is a different pie entirely. She was firm about that.
The second thing was the leaves. Never the leaves. Only the stalks.
She said it twice, in a way that suggested she had once known someone who learned the hard way. Rhubarb leaves carry oxalic acid and they are genuinely toxic, which is the kind of fact I find oddly comforting in a recipe with so few rules.
The third thing was the timing. Rhubarb custard pie belongs to May and June in this part of the country, because rhubarb is one of the first edible plants to come up after winter.
Before the strawberries. Before the berries. Before the orchards.
She called it “pie-plant,” which I had only ever seen in old print. The pie was a sign winter was finally over.
I read up later in a motel outside Harrisburg, with the placemat unfolded on the bedspread. The dish is American Midwest and Great Plains and Pennsylvania Dutch, with English roots traced through Hannah Glasse and her 1760 confectioner.
Bringing It Back to My Kitchen
I have made this pie six times since I got home. The first time it ran.
I cut into it after two hours on the rack, which was pure hubris on my part, and it spread like a tide pool across the plate.
So the change I have made is purely about patience. Two hours on the rack, then four hours in the fridge, uncovered, before a knife touches it.
That is not me adapting the recipe. That is me finally listening to it.
The other small change is the rhubarb itself. In Lancaster County in May, it comes up in everyone’s yard.
In Los Angeles it does not. I get mine at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market on Sunday morning, from a stall run by a woman who only has it for about three weeks each spring and then it vanishes for the year.
When the season ends I have used frozen rhubarb, which is fine, but you have to thaw it in a colander and press the water out hard or the custard will weep. I learned that the slow, embarrassing way.
I grate the nutmeg fresh with my one decent microplane. This is a glass pie plate job, because you want to watch the bottom crust go gold.
What I Used
- 1.25 cups all-purpose flour for the crust, plus 3 tablespoons for the custard
- 0.5 teaspoon salt, split between the crust and the filling
- 0.5 cup very cold unsalted butter, cubed, plus 1 tablespoon for dotting the top
- 4 tablespoons ice water, sometimes a splash more
- About 1.25 pounds fresh rhubarb stalks, trimmed and cut into half inch pieces, roughly 4 cups
- 1.25 cups granulated sugar
- 0.25 teaspoon ground nutmeg, freshly grated if you have it
- 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
- 2 tablespoons whole milk or light cream
The Cooling Matters More Than the Baking
The thing nobody tells you about a custard pie is that it is not finished when it comes out of the oven. It is finished hours later, in the cold of the fridge, when the eggs have done their last quiet work.
You want a slight jiggle in the center when you pull it. Not liquid. A jiggle.
If the middle looks set already you have gone too far, and it will go rubbery the next day. Carryover heat finishes the job.
Most recipes tell you to test the center with a knife. I do not. I trust the wobble.
I had Joni Mitchell on the speaker the third time I baked it, the kitchen window open onto a warm March evening, and the timer went off mid-song. I pulled it on instinct, a beat before I would have last time. That was the one that turned out right.
The Rhubarb Custard Pie on a Quiet Sunday
I served it last Sunday to a friend who had never eaten rhubarb in any form. She asked if it was apple.
I almost corrected her. Then I decided no, let her have the first bite blind.
She put her fork down and said, “Oh.” Just that.
That is exactly what Mrs. Beiler’s pie did to me in Lititz. I do not think I will ever drive through Lancaster County again without stopping at that counter, if it is still there. Some places you only get once.
Rhubarb Custard Pie
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Make the crust. In a medium bowl, whisk together 1.25 cups of all-purpose flour and 0.25 teaspoon of the salt. Scatter the cold cubed butter over the flour and rub it in with your fingertips or cut it in with a pastry blender until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces of butter still visible.
- Sprinkle 4 tablespoons of ice water over the flour mixture and stir gently with a fork until the dough just comes together when pressed. If it feels dry, add more ice water a teaspoon at a time. Shape the dough into a flat disc, wrap it tightly, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
- Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 400 F. Place a rimmed baking sheet on the rack to preheat with the oven.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll the chilled dough into a 12 inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. Drape it into a 9 inch pie plate, easing it into the corners without stretching. Trim the overhang to 1 inch, fold it under itself along the rim, and crimp decoratively. Return the crust to the refrigerator while you mix the filling.
- Rinse and dry the rhubarb stalks well, trim the ends, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces. You should have about 4 cups. Pile the rhubarb evenly into the chilled crust.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together 1.25 cups of granulated sugar, 3 tablespoons of flour, the remaining 0.25 teaspoon of salt, and the nutmeg. Add the lightly beaten eggs and the milk and whisk until smooth and pale, about 30 seconds.
- Pour the custard slowly over the rhubarb, letting it settle into the gaps. Gently shake the pie plate to even it out. Dot the surface with the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter cut into small bits.
- Set the pie on the preheated baking sheet on the lower rack and bake at 400 F for 10 minutes to set the bottom crust.
- Without opening the oven, reduce the temperature to 350 F and continue baking for 40 to 45 minutes, until the crust is deep golden and the custard is puffed at the edges but still jiggles just slightly in the center when nudged. If the crust edge browns too quickly, shield it loosely with strips of foil.
- Transfer the pie to a wire rack and cool at room temperature for at least 2 hours, then refrigerate uncovered for at least 4 hours, or until thoroughly chilled, before slicing. Cut with a sharp knife wiped clean between slices and serve cold.