Rhubarb

There's not much in the dessert line that I love more than my mum's rhubarb pie, so when I saw some stalks in the grocery store this week I had to buy a few. Mum isn't baking these days and I thought it would be nice to bring her some individually-sized pies when I see her on the weekend.

I love rhubarb's colours - the pinky red and the different shades of green. These stalks even had spots inside!


Mum's recipe calls for 1-inch hunks of rhubarb but I like them small, so they spread out into the custard filling.


Yes, that is a lot of rhubarb. I figured I'd freeze half for a future pie... and I doubled my recipe for sweet pastry, too. I'm evil with that stuff: as well as desserts, I use it for chicken pie. With maybe a little less sugar in it, ahem.

The tarts turned out to be high maintenance - they took most of the day to put together, on what I must say was a seriously hot day both inside the house and out.


But I knew I was doing something nice for my mum and when I got these little pastry stars on top I just felt so happy.


Actually tasting one was pure bliss. I only wish you could freeze custards. It would be nice just to enjoy random acts of pie, don't you think?