Search This Blog

Friday, August 2, 2013

[Rhubarb cake] Fruity Summer Cake with Full of Vitamin A and C

Rhubarb has been in season already for a couple of months, which means there is only a few weeks left to buy fresh rhubarb at grocery store. I try to eat as much rhubarb as possible during the season. Rhubarb-strawberry compote is my favorite snack/dessert using rhubarb. You can see my rhubarb compote recipe hereI also like rhubarb pie very much, even though I don't make it often since I tend to eat more than my quota :(. My guys and I usually eat baked stuffs for breakfast, but it's kind of hard, or maybe not really hard, to eat pie in the morning. And I am kind of afraid of eating sweet things in the evening. 


That's why I proclaimed "Eureka" when I got this Rhubarb cake recipe from a colleague. I was sure a big piece of rhubarb cake would make a nice breakfast. And as I expected it was a hit! The only thing that disappointed(?) me is that the cake doesn't have pinkish colour as I expected. 


Well, maybe it's unfair to compare the colour of rhubarb cake to that of rhubarb pie for which I add a cup of strawberries that gives a nice pink touch to the pie filling.


But, still you will taste a pleasant tartness of rhubarb in the cake. It rocks a sunny summer morning, and afternoon as well :) To make it less sweet, I omitted the streusel on top and replaced it with one tablespoon of icing sugar, but feel free to add streusel topping as suggested in the recipe. Personally, I prefer eating two pieces of slightly sweet cake to a piece of super sweet cake.
This is the cake I'm going to make at least two more times in August :)

 Here goes the recipe for the delicious rhubarb cake.
(adapted from The Cookbook Store)

Ingredients
1/2  cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg1 tsp. vanilla2 cups rhubarb2 cups flour1 tsp. baking soda1/2 tsp. salt
1 cup buttermilk
(or 1 tablespoon white vinegar and 1 cup less 1 tablespoon milk)

Ingredients for streusel topping
1/4  cup butter, softened

2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar, packed

Directions

1. (To make buttermilk substitute) Place a Tablespoon of white vinegar a liquid measuring cup.


2. Then, pour enough milk up to the one-cup line. If you have buttermilk ready, skip the step 1 and 2.
 Let stand for five minute. Then, it's ready to use!

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). 

4.  Cut rhubarb into 1/2 inch pieces. 

5. Grease a 9" x 13" inch cake pan with butter and set aside. 

6. Beat together 1/2 cup butter and sugar until creamy. 

7. Add egg and vanilla and mix well.

8. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.  

9.  Add flour mixture to creamed mixture in 3 parts, alternating with buttermilk or buttermilk substitute.


(1 tablespoon white vinegar and 1 cup less 1 tablespoon milk). 

10. Toss rhubarb in the batter and gently stir in.

11. Add 1 tablespoon ginger(optional) and mix.

12. Put into the pan and smooth the top. If you are topping the batter with streusel topping, blend together all ingredients and sprinkle over batter. 

13. Bake for 45 minutes or until cake comes away from the sides of the pan.

14. If you didn't sprinkle streusel topping over the cake batter, top the cake with icing sugar when the cake is still warm. (optional)


Serve warm or at room temperature.
This is one delicious cake!
Enjoy!

Rhubarb Cake

6 comments:

  1. Very curious about the taste of rhubarb. It kinda looks like a red celery.. But taking into consider that there isn't any recipe with celery, I guess it would be very different haha.

    Have you changed your camera? The photos somehow look a bit different, brighter I would say. It takes great close-up photos:)

    Hope you have a good start of a week!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Carolina, sorry for the late reply. I've been away. Rhubarb is nothing to do with celery. It should be classified as fruit rather than vegetable. It has a very very very sour taste. Maybe you will be able to find frozen diced rhubarb at grocery stores.

      Yes. I changed camera a few months ago. IT's time to get a new lens. My photos are too bright, aren't they? I also have to figure out this issue. :(

      Have a nice week!

      Delete
    2. No worries, I guessed so;)
      The sad news is there's no rhubarb in Nicaragua, even frozen onces. A few days ago, I bought a bag of frozen blueberries which costed me what I could have bought 200 mangos in a traditional market haha. It was worth spending that much money, anyway.

      Oh, what I meant by the brighter photos is actually I like them. They captures well the vivid color.

      You too have a nice one!

      Delete
  2. Hi, It looks great and tasty. Can I use quinoa instead of flour with same recipe that you made?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi there, this cake is really easy and delicious.:) I guess what you meant here was quinoa flour/ground quinoa? Well, first of all, I'm sorry. I can't answer this question properly since I've never used it before, for any type of baking... When you do an experiment with quinoa flour, please let me know the result! Thanks!

      Delete
    2. FYI. According to cooking.stackexchange.com,

      "The flavor of quinoa is significantly different than that of white flour, and the consistency tends to be a bit grittier (although this is probably a function of the milling process). The other thing that quinoa lacks is gluten, the protein that makes bread doughs rubbery and stretchy.If the bread is a quick bread (using a something like baking powder as the leavening agent), you should be able to sub without changing the recipe. You'll need to keep an eye on the consistency since the quinoa will probably absorb a bit more or a bit less water depending on how finely it was milled."

      Delete