Can you cook rhubarb with no sweetener?

There is only one way to prove to him that rhubarb without sweetener will set his teeth on edge. That is to insist on cooking HIS without any. Keep on doing your own as usual, and don't give in if he asks for some of yours!

Use a small amount of Total Sweet, it can be used by diabetics and those with pre-diabetes. I use it to sweeten custard, cakes, pies etc. Very little is needed. Total Sweet is a natural sweetener made from birch and beech trees. I buy it from Sainsbury's.

We grow it in the garden and I always cook mine first - either stew it or cook in the oven, depending on what I'm going to use it for - and then add sugar as required.

I once read that rhubarb can be added to a beef casserole to add an interesting context, "and the family will never guess".
I had a try and it did (add an interested texture), and they didn't (guess). But I stupidly told them, and every casserole for years after was greeted with "Has this got rhubarb in?"

I'm another who never adds sugar to rhubarb crumble.

I add strawberries to rhubarb and cook in the oven. If you have some over ripe strawberries that are past their best it works well.

My mother always stewed rhubarb without sugar and froze it in blocks, adding the sugar when she defrosted it. As DH doesn't like hot sweet desserts (They're just not anything here in Germany) I never get the chance to do rhubarb crumble these days, which I would love, but wouldn't make just for me.

The only way I can use rhubarb is either as a savoury dish - served as a vegetable - or in a rhubarb cheesecake. The rhubarb goes in the bottom of a pastry base, chopped small, raw, and filled up with a sort of sweet quiche mixture, mainly using quark and eggs. Several recipes use a sachet of custard powder to set it, reducing the eggs.

That makes sense.

Many years ago, I had a boyfriend who was an industrial chemist and he told me to never add sugar to fruit while cooking. I can't recall the complicated explanation of the process but, translated into lay persons' language, the heating and boiling process makes the sugar taste less sweet so you need to add much more sugar to achieve the taste you want.
Instead, he advised cooking the fruit then, when it has cooled just slightly but is still quite hot, taste it and add a modest amount of sugar or honey according to your preference.
I've cooked fruit this way ever since and find, except for rhubarb and blackcurrants, I very rarely need to add anything to most fruits.

Yesterday I part- cooked rhubarb in the oven with half a tablespoon of sugar( I wish I had thought about the fruit juice ) then topped it with crumble with another half. Sweet enough, not too sweet. I daren’t eat much though or it means a quick dash to the loo!

Some rhubarb varieties are naturally sweeter. We grow rhubarb and I find the redder or pinker the stems, the sweeter our fruit; the green stems are quite tart.

I cooked some last evening to make coulis for topping Greek yoghurt. Both came out of the freezer, the rhubarb is an early so that was this years crop and I cooked it with some of last years blackberries and raspberries. I used very little water and no sugar. If necessary I'd use Splenda or a little brown sugar or even honey.

It’ll strip the enamel off your teeth!
I use Demerara sugar, we had rhubarb crumble yesterday.

Orange juice is good especially if the rhubarb is stewed in a slow oven (as I do) or a slow cooker. But I do add a half /1 tsp of sugar and a pinch of salt. My MIL taught me how that brings out the sweetness.
And we used to Demerara sugar to taste when eating

If you can find the herb “sweet Cecily”, add that to your rhubarb, remove it after cooking. It stops that toe curling, mouth-puckering sourness of main crop rhubarb.
You can also add sugar to your own taste with each serving if your DH doesn’t want any.

MayBee70

Where can you get forced rhubarb from? I had a book about it years ago. It was a novel. But I lent it to a friend, never got it back and can’t remember what it was called. I’d love to read it again.

Usually it is the earliest more expensive stuff. Pinker than the later rhubarb. Supposed to be sweeter as well, but I usually add a sweetener of some sort.

I can eat bowlfuls of rhubarb, I love it.

I like tinned pears in fruit juice and the juice is very sweet so might be useful for that. Not the pears in syrup.

Sorry paddyann54 I somehow missed your post in the thread. That’s what I use too.

Orange juice! It makes it really sweet and you can’t taste it.

MiniMoon

As children we used to eat a stick of rhubarb raw with a little saucer of sugar to dip it in.
I couldn't eat stewed rhubarb without sweetening it.

We dipped it in loads of sugar in a poke.

A poke is a paper bag in this part of the world.

I cook it in diet lemonade,works well.

I don’t sweeten rhubarb if I stew it for a crumble, there is enough sugar in the crumble mix for me. I love tart fruit.

Where can you get forced rhubarb from? I had a book about it years ago. It was a novel. But I lent it to a friend, never got it back and can’t remember what it was called. I’d love to read it again.

As children we used to eat a stick of rhubarb raw with a little saucer of sugar to dip it in.
I couldn't eat stewed rhubarb without sweetening it.

J52

I bake it in the oven, makes it sweeter.

I've done that and it works well.

but eat it raw without sweetener
I'm getting pains in my saliva glands just thinking abou that, Redhead

I grow it I sweeten with a touch of honey when cooking it but eat it raw without sweetener.

When I used to go to a certain slimming club they used to say to poach it in diet lemonade. I always found doing it that way it had a synthetic taste. Perhaps using the non diet variety would give better results.