Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Rhubarb Cake

The only desserts I like to bake are simple fruit cakes. They’re easy, low-maintenance and fairly light. Why bake huge cakes or batches of cookies for a household of two? My go-to recipes are this apple charlotte (can be made with a variety of fruit), this curd-cheese cake with apples, and, now, this rhubarb cake. The recipe, from the Estonian food blog Nami Nami, caught my eye because it calls for kefir or buttermilk. I love using cultured dairy in baking—it makes cakes more tender and balances excess sweetness.

Here’s my tweaked recipe. The rhubarb is from Witte's Vegetable Farm in Cedarburg, Wis. (at $1.50 per pound, it’s a very good deal).

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
Pinch of salt
1.5 tsp. baking power
100 grams butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs, beaten
200 ml milk, yogurt, kefir or buttermilk (I used 50/50 milk and sour cream)
1 lb. rhubarb, finely diced

Preheat the oven to 370. Mix the dry ingredients (flour through baking powder) in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, add the milk ingredients to the butter; mix. Add the eggs and stir well.

Combine the dry and wet ingredients; mix. Fold in the rhubarb. Grease a 10-inch pie pan. Pour the batter into the pan; sprinkle with demerara sugar. Bake 50-55 minutes, until the top of the cake is golden-brown and a toothpick or knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

If you like, sprinkle with powered sugar before serving.

6 comments:

Lo said...

I LOVE using kefir in my baking -- great cultures, and it performs delightfully.

Also love a good rhubarb bread or cake. This one is definitely going into my "to try" pile.

Mrs. M. said...

Lo--That reminds me--this cake can just as easily be baked in a loaf pan to make a rhubarb bread. Great recipe--I will make this again, possibly with apples.

wholesale sweets said...

Great recipe! Thanks for the info!

Frenchie said...

I tried this tonight after buying a bunch of rhubarb and inviting some friends over for dinner - YUM! It didn't disappoint! So simple, too. I added a bit of cardamom to the mixture, and at the end I sprinkled with brown sugar, because that's all I had at home - but it still tasted wonderful. I agree, recipes with buttermilk (or "lait fermente" which was what I found at the French grocery stores) are always wonderful - thanks!

Alysha (She's on the Run) said...

I have some frozen rhubarb from last spring in my freezer and I need to use it up. This seems like a great recipe.

Do you know about how many cups of diced rhubarb would equal 1 cup?

Mrs. M. said...

Hi Alysha--Not sure about the rhubarb measurements. You can add as much or as little rhubarb to this cake, actually. It's a pretty flexible recipe, as far as fruit goes.

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