Baked: Trubarb

Baguettes rehearsal this weekend focused on our Unbelievable Truth set (May 6 at AnySquared Projects & Studio). The Unbelievable Truth is a live game show in which four contestants try to out-lie each other while smuggling in a handful of truths undetected. So I made a true-or-false strawberry-rhubarb pie, which Charlie dubbed Trubarb.

The crust was from Pie School, which is one of the most reliable pastry recipes I've ever encountered. The filling departed from standard strawberry- rhubarb recipes in its proportion (about one-third berries, two-thirds rhubarb). One thing I have learned about myself: I am entirely unaware of gauging how quantity of rhubarb stalks translates to quantity of pie filling. If anything, I would have expected to have leftover rhubarb. Instead I had to add berries.

Baking with seasonal fruit means developing some instincts about the fruit on hand. I usually skimp on sugar—most recipes are too sweet—but these were early-season berries: tart, hard, and rather bland. They needed the full cup of sugar, and I goosed the flavor with lemon zest and ground ginger, along with the standard nutmeg. I also let everything macerate in lemon juice for a couple of hours before piling the filling into the crust. I'm not sure you'd mistake the result for something from the peak of strawberry season, but it was sweet and rhubarby, and it hit the spot after several hours of music.