Celebrity

Ina Garten Gives Rhubarb Pie an Easy Barefoot Contessa Twist That’s so Elegant

Ina Garten puts an elegant and rustic twist on a typical fruit and rhubarb pie with her raspberry rhubarb crostata. The 'Barefoot Contessa' star makes and easy pastry dough and a simple filling of berries, rhubarb, orange zet, and orange juice, adding cornstarch to thicken it. Garten noted this is easier than a pie.

by Wendy Michaels

Published on August 16, 2021

2 min read

Ina Garten’s rhubarb dessert is a fresh spin on an old classic

Rhubarb is often paired with fruit in desserts and Garten has the perfect combination of berries, sugar, rhubarb, and orange flavorings that makes a delicious pie filling.

She wrote about the easy but impressive dessert on her Barefoot Contessa website. “Crostatas are basically free-form tarts. They can be adapted to lots of seasonal fruit, such as apples in the fall, peaches in summer, and this Raspberry Rhubarb Crostata in the Spring,” she explained.

“Everyone’s had strawberry rhubarb pie, but I love the combination of tart rhubarb with sweet raspberries, and just a hint of orange,” she added. “The dough makes enough for 2 crostatas, so you can serve one tonight and be ready when you need another one for Sunday lunch, or freeze it for another time! How easy is that??”

Ina Garten’s raspberry rhubarb crostata has a delicious filling

Garten demonstrated how to make her raspberry rhubarb crostata recipe on an episode of Barefoot Contessa. She cut the rhubarb into half-inch pieces and placed it in a pot with raspberries, sugar, grated orange zest, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. She cooked the mixture for 5 to 6 minutes, “just until some of the juices in the fruit is released,” then added cornstarch and water to the pot and cooked everything for another 2 minutes until it thickened.

“A crostata is this very sort of freeform rustic pie,” she explained. “You just bake it right on a sheet pan. I think it’s fantastic.” Garten also shared that she likes to use orange zest with rhubarb and berries because it “has so much flavor.”

She chilled the filling for 30 minutes before assembling the dessert.

‘The Barefoot Contessa’ star makes an easy pastry

Garten’s pastry is a basic recipe of flour, sugar, salt, butter, and ice water that she combined in a food processor. Once the dough came together, she turned it onto a floured board, cut it in half, and formed two disks, then wrapped and refrigerated the dough for an hour. “Once you get the knack of it, it’s really quite easy,” she shared.

After it was chilled, she put the dough on a floured board and floured the pastry and rolling pin, then rolled it into a 12-inch round circle. She transferred the dough to a sheet pan lined with parchment paper, then spooned the filling onto the crust. “This is so much easier than a pie,” she explained as she folded the edges of the crust in toward the filling. “It’s kind of rustic — I love the feeling of it,” she added.

The Barefoot Contessa star brushed the edge with egg wash, sprinkled it with demerara sugar, and baked the crostata in a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

The full recipe is available on the Food Network website.