This is an unusual pairing, and not just from a “visual” perspective. Blackberry’s black color allows it to work with a variety of food items aesthetically. The problem is that rhubarb brings out the secondary “sourness” of blackberries, especially if they are not ripe enough to be tastefully sweet. And you might have to use sugar with a heavy hand in a recipe that combines the two together, which might raise the calorie count beyond what you would ideally like.
But there are dishes where the two can potentially work together, though not as many as there would be for other recipes.
Blackberry Tarts: Since you can make a tart with both blackberry and rhubarb, it makes sense that you can combine the two in one tart as well. You can make both a regular and a “fool” tart with blackberry and rhubarb together.
The two blackberry-rhubarb tart recipes you might want to start with are:
Blackberry Cocktails: Blackberry cocktails and rhubarb cocktails might be very different on principle, but there is a way to combine the two ingredients to form another line of cocktails. Since they are both “tart,” there are a few ways to combine them into refreshing cocktails that complement each other quite nicely
Three examples are:
Blackberry Milkshake: No. You might think that just because blackberry’s closest cousin strawberry allows rhubarb to share a milkshake, blackberry would do too, but it doesn’t. Blackberries and rhubarb don’t go together in a milkshake.
Blackberry Muffins: The fluffy treats that are muffins allow a few combinations of blackberries and rhubarb. The two can complement each other because there are several other ingredients to control the “taste” outcome and to keep the two from bringing out the worst in each other.
The two example recipes of blackberry muffins are:
Blackberry Cake: Like muffins, cakes offer a decent variety of ways to combine blackberries and rhubarb. You can add the two to make the cake, but usually, blackberries have the honor to be the toppings. Blackberries and rhubarb go together reasonably well in both the loaf and snack cakes.
The three blackberry and rhubarb cake recipes to consider are:
Blackberry Jam: Blackberry and rhubarb jam together surprisingly well. Jams are a great way to preserve blackberries for a relatively long time, and if you believe you will get bored with a plan blackberry jam, it’s a good idea to “tart” things up with a bit of rhubarb in the mix. For some recipes, you might not even need to use pectin.
Two ways to make blackberry jam with rhubarb are:
Blackberry Pies: The world of pies is quite inclusive and allows you to combine blackberries and rhubarb in quite a few combinations. The easiest way to make blackberries and rhubarb go together in a pie would be to use blackberry toppings on rhubarb pie, but it doesn’t go as well the other way around. But they also go well as fillings, often with other berries thrown in the mix.
Three examples of blackberry-rhubarb pies are:
Blackberry Salads: Most blackberry salads where rhubarb is also part of the mix are strawberry-dominated. Some salads allow you to sub in blackberries in place of strawberries, but the results might not be quite as tasteful.
One blackberry salad that accounts for rhubarb is:
Blackberry Butter: Blackberry butter is quite delicious. Rhubarb butter has to be “tampered” with sugar to make them palatable by cutting through the tartness. But the two combined might be too much for butter. So you might have a hard time finding a viable recipe for blackberry butter that uses rhubarb as an active ingredient.
Blackberry Pudding: Pies are another arena where blackberries and rhubarb might not go very well together. The problem again might be too much tartness. One recipe we found combined rhubarb with mixed berries (including blackberries) for a pudding. But there is a pudding that uses both blackberries and rhubarb in almost equal amounts (by volume).
The two recipes are:
Blackberry Bread: Since cakes and muffins allow the blackberries and rhubarb to go together, it’s only natural that an overlapping food item group, i.e., bread, will do the same. Blackberry and rhubarb together can be used to make a few different types of bread, including Cardamom Bread.
Two ways to make blackberry bread with rhubarb are:
Blackberry Ice Cream: It would be quite easy to use fresh (or even frozen) blackberries with rhubarb ice cream. But that’s not the only way blackberries and rhubarb go together in ice cream. There are a few other combinations as well.
Three blackberry-rhubarb ice cream recipes are:
Blackberry and rhubarb are a bit unusual combination because the overlapping factor is tartness instead of sweetness, which yields tastier results. Still, the wealth of combination can tell you that blackberries and rhubarb can go together quite well indeed.