A sheaf of plump rhubarb has sat pride of place on the kitchen table for the past week. The world is its oyster. It could be anything it wants to be... but it is just sat there. It needs direction. Here are a few ideas as to what it might become...
A career as rhubarb fool would be fun and rather light-hearted, but it looks like serious rhubarb to me.
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| The world is my oyster apparently ... |
Perhaps a career as a crumble or a tart? A little too serious maybe - and besides tarts and crumbles are wintery food and look at that beautiful sunshiny day!
Well then, how about rhubarb and vanilla ice cream? Delightful, but it’s only April and while sunshiny, it’s hardly ice cream weather is it? Let’s save that one for another occasion.
I know! This sheaf of rhubarb has everything it takes to become a successful and delectable ginger-roasted rhubarb cake. Oh alright, I’ll throw in a vanilla crumble topping too.
For approximately 10 servings you will need...
Ginger-roasted rhubarb
300g rhubarb, cut into bite-sized pieces
75g Muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger
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| Sugar and spice - ginger-roasted rhubarb |
1 Combine all the ingredients in a shallow pie dish and bake for 20 minutes in the pre-heated oven, stirring carefully once or twice during cooking so that the rhubarb is evenly coated in the syrup that is generated. When the cooking time has elapsed, remove from the oven and allow to cool. Meanwhile, prepare the vanilla crumble topping.
Vanilla crumble topping
120g butter, chilled and cut into about 10 cubes
75g plain flour
75g rolled oats
50g Muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 Place all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz in short bursts until roughly combined. Chill until ready to use. (The quantities given make about twice as much crumble topping as you’ll need for this cake but it freezes beautifully for next time.)
2 Next, make the cake batter.
Cake batter
200g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
175g caster sugar
100mls sunflower oil
50mls freshly squeezed orange juice (or milk)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract (or rose water)
2 eggs, beaten
a small knob of butter for greasing the tin
Pre-heat the oven to 170°C
1 Butter and baseline a 23cm (9 inch) sandwich tin.
2 In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine the first 4 ingredients.
3 In a measuring jug or batter bowl, combine the oil, orange juice, vanilla extract and eggs and add to the bowl of dry ingredients, mixing until well combined.
4 Pour half the batter into the prepared tin. Drain any excess syrup from the rhubarb (this is good spooned over ice cream) and scatter the cooled pieces on top of the batter, leaving a small margin around the edges. Spoon the remaining batter on top. Don’t be too fussy about covering up all the rhubarb as you'll be covering it with crumble.
5 Scatter the crumble mix over the top and bake in the pre-heated oven for 40 minutes or until well risen and golden on top. A cocktail stick inserted in the middle should come out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin.
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| Catch me while you can! |
This is really good served slightly warm, with a dollop of whipped cream, and is even better the following day when the flavours have had a chance to develop (but it rarely hangs round long enough for that to happen).
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