Strawberry Rhubarb Cake

I bought a bunch of rhubarb at the farmers market this weekend thinking that I would make this pie again.

Sadly, I didn't have pie crust and my counters were a mess from making blue cheese dressing, rubbing steaks, and butchering and marinating a chicken (seriously, I was so disgusted...I'll post more about it soon).

Don't worry - my counters were bleached in between all that meat juice, but I had a TON of dirty dishes and wasn't feeling like making pie crust.

I needed to use up the rhubarb so I perused one of my favorite sites, epicurious.com and found this recipe that I could use. I modified it a bit. I used a metal 9" pan instead of a glass 8"pan, buttermilk instead of whole milk, and salted butter instead of unsalted. It was WONDERFUL. Better yet, it was EASY. In fact, it was so wonderful that my eldest son requested it for his birthday. He's had my version of chocolate mud cake the last 5 years without ever even considering anything else so I consider this a pretty great accomplishment.

Here's the recipe! Make it! It's scrumptious.

Strawberry Rhubarb Cake ala Bobalu

Ingredients:
1/4 cup water
1-1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/3 cup plus 1/2 cup sugar
2 cups chopped fresh rhubarb stalks
1 cup chopped fresh strawberries
1 cup all purpose flour
1-3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 stick butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preparation:

1. Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 400F. Butter a 9" nonstick cake pan.
2. Stir together water, rhubarb, cornstarch and 1/3 cup sugar in a small saucepan. Bring just to a boil, lower heat immediately and simmer 3 minutes, stirring so it doesn't stick to the pan or burn. Remove from heat and stir in the strawberries.
3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and remaining 1/2 cup sugar in a small bowl.
4. Whisk together egg, buttermilk, butter and vanilla in a large bowl, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined.
5. Place 1/2 of fruit mixture in bottom of buttered pan, top with the batter, spreading evenly, then drizzle the remaining fruit over the top.
6. Bake 30 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Cool at least 5 minutes - we let it sit during our dinner and while I made homemade almond whipped cream to top it with - about 45 minutes. It was still slightly warm and very delicious.

Enjoy!

Rhubarb Lemon Jam

I made this rhubarb jam a couple weeks ago. My pictures and my jam weren't quite as rosy and my water tends to leave a white film on my canning jars, so please, look at the photos from the link instead of my own. In fact, I'll post mine just so you can see how much paler my rhubarb was and how much my canning bath films up my jars. Anyone have a good solution for that? I fear it's our water.

In any event, it was a nice way to use up the bagful of rhubarb I'd bought. I actually found it at a garage sale and the woman sold me an entire grocery bag of it for $3! I couldn't believe my luck! The jam is super easy to make, doesn't require pectin, (which I adore!), and is great either on ice cream or on a bagel with cream cheese. It also makes a pretty killer PB&J, if you're into that sort of thing - which we are. If you halve this recipe, you could probably just use it all right away and not worry about canning it. I think it should be good in the refrigerator for a couple weeks.

Since you can access the recipe on their site and I didn't modify anything, I'll just let you mosey on over to leitesculinaria.com and check it out for yourself. It's one of my favorite recipe sites.

Oh, and p.s. Yes, I did use a plastic IKEA plate to test my jam on...don't judge.