The rhubarb train

I'm still on the rhubarb train. And, although we are just now gliding into June, it remains possible, I tell you, to find rhubarb at your grocery store or local farmer’s market. Soon it will be gone, though, I'm sad to say. We are, as I type these very words, running out of time. 

In light of all of this, I bring you today a collection of rhubarb recipes in tandem with one very delicious, seasonal, cake-pie-crumble-hybrid-dessert thing. Yes, that is what we have here, officially. 

The recipe comes from the pages of Nigel Slater’s brilliant tome Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard. As suggested by the title, Ripe is a book about a cook and his homegrown fruit. It is a delectable and delightful collection of recipes, nestled among tender photos of Nigel’s garden and the wonderful and varied things that he is able to make from it. His section on rhubarb is formidable. It includes a rundown of the many heirloom varieties (with names such as Muriel, Cutbush’s Seedling, and The Streeter), a brief history, and a starry-eyed ode that speaks volumes to his love of the stalky, poison-leafed plant. 

“How could anyone not love something known as the pie plant—or indeed, anything whose stems offer such vibrant color at a time of the year when most of our fruit is sleeping?” Nigel begins. “Yet rhubarb has never found the broad audience enjoyed by the raspberry or the apple. Instead, it has a loyal, almost cultish following, happy to indulge in its piercing crimson sharpness.”

I don’t think a more beautiful description of rhubarb has ever appeared in print than “piercing crimson sharpness.” 

Rhubarb inspires those who love it to inhabit a certain madness. We might surreptitiously pull a stalk from a neighbor’s yard. We might howl at the heavens shaking a mighty fistful. We might write book chapters about the plant that read like proper odes to a long-lost friend. Such is the cultish following that rhubarb enjoys. 

To accompany the recipe for this cake—which, by the way, is so delicious; crunchy, hearty, sweet, and tart all at once—I give you a list of of thirteen more things to do with rhubarb. I am hoping to make this a regular practice on the site, once per month or so, to compile a list of recipes exploring a particular fruit, vegetable, or food category. I will learn some things in the process, I hope, about vinegars, or homemade ricotta, or cherries, or peas, or yeasted doughs. And, in its own way, this blog may become something of a resource for us cooks, gardeners, and rhubarb-chasers alike. 

So, go forth with your fistfuls of crimson sharpness! Let's enjoy it while it lasts. 

13 Recipes to Inspire Rhubarb Thievery 

Eton Mess with Rhubarb-Gin Jam and Lemon-Basil Meringue
Rhubarb "Big Crumb" Coffee Cake

Rhubarb Clafoutis

Rhubarb Compote

Rhubarb Custard Cream Pie

Rhubarb Orange

Rhubarb Shake

Rhubarb Syrup (for Cocktails)

Rhubarb Tart with Mascarpone Cream

Roasted Pork Belly with Gingery Rhubarb Compote

Rye Shortcakes with Roasted Strawberries and Rhubarb 

Strawberry Rhubarb Salad with Mint and Hazelnuts

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Rhubarb-Raspberry Cornmeal Cake

Adapted from Ripe

Notes: The most significant modification I made to this recipe was to add raspberries. You could easily omit them, and I'm sure the cake would be delicious. Alternately, I would guess that strawberries could also be tossed in at the last second. For a summer version of this cake, I would try it with nectarines or plums. The original recipe calls for golden baker's sugar. I substituted a combination of light brown sugar and granulated in the crust, and light brown only for the fruit.

Filling:
1 pound rhubarb
1/4 cup light brown sugar
4 tablespoons water
3 ounces (3/4 cups) raspberries

Crust:
3/4 cups coarse polenta or cornmeal
1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Generous pinch of cinnamon
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
Zest of one organic orange, finely grated
10 tablespoons butter, chilled
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon demerara or Turbinado sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place a baking sheet inside the oven. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan; line with parchment once across, and butter the parchment.

Trim the ends of the rhubarb, and cut each stalk into roughly 2-inch pieces. Place in a large baking dish, adding the sugar and water on top. Roast for 30 minutes, or until the rhubarb is soft, but still has some shape. Drain the rhubarb, reserving the juice. (You can pause at this point; the roasted rhubarb will keep for a day or so in the fridge. The cake can then be assembled quickly the day you plan to serve it.)

In a large bowl, combine the polenta, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and sugars with a wooden spoon. Cut the butter into smallish cubes and add it to the flour mixture. Add the orange zest. Use a pastry blender to cut the butter into the flour mixture, until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. There should still be some pea-sized pieces of butter.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and the milk. Pour it into the flour mixture, and use your hands to blend the crust together. Stop as soon as the mixture comes together being careful not to overmix. The dough should be somewhat sticky. If it is not, add 1–2 tablespoons more milk.

Scoop out two-thirds of the dough, and press it into the prepared pan with your fingers. It should go up the sides about half an inch higher than the dough that forms the base. Toss the rhubarb across the surface of the dough, and then scatter the raspberries over. Crumble the remaining dough over the fruit, and sprinkle with the demarara sugar to finish.

Bake for 1 hour, on the preheated baking sheet, or until the crust is a rich golden brown. Serve with the reserved juice from the rhubarb drizzled on top.

Not a Single Day

I’ve been thinking a lot about loss, what with the news of hurricane Sandy that’s been streaming in from the East Coast (my thoughts are with you New York, my beloved city).

I spent the duration of the storm living a sort of parallel reality, from my bed, stricken with the flu. In my feverish state, all sorts of things surfaced in my mind—there was a sort of psychic wreckage blowing around in there. And then, when I awoke, when I really awoke, when I was finally getting better, I began to see the images of overturned cars and uprooted oak trees, a blackened city skyline, and deserted streets.

There was only one other time that I remember this profound sense of emptiness that can be felt when the city’s buildings, its life force and visceral landscape, could be seen as darkened and unmoving. I hesitate to go back there in my mind.

When I was little, I used to look at the city skyline from my father’s moving car and think of how each light, in each square window, in every apartment building, represented an individual life—I remember feeling overwhelmed and comforted by this thought at the same time: that lives cross in these oblique yet profoundly intimate ways; that we are small; that moments in time can’t be counted; that things and people are constantly lapsing in and out of being.

I think of my sister whenever I think of loss—someone who I haven’t seen in six years. The story is—as they often are—a long one. I can’t go into all of it here, at least for the moment. But the sadness that pervades her loss is always with me. And though this has been said before, perhaps by many, there truly is not a single day when I don’t think of her. It’s been long enough now that I am beginning to remember her again as she once was—when she was a little girl. How we fought, and laughed, and fought again. She used to bribe me with food items: bits of butter coated in sugar and other weird childhood concoctions. I remember her chubby fingers reaching out to pass me some little morsel, and I, hungrily and greedily, leaning in to accept it. I emulated her sense of strength—the way she laughed heartily and threw passionate fits. She was always very convincing.

I will write about her more here in bits and pieces, as the memories come. She is in everything that I do and in most things that I think and feel. We suffer chronically around the loss of her.

*

To this parade of sadness and sickness today, though, I will also add some cake—because that’s what we do; that’s what I’ve always done. 

My mother and I would take to the kitchen armed with butter and sugar and a few more spare things and whip together something that could be relished and consumed. I hope that in the way that cake can be shared, so too can these thoughts—that perhaps they shore up some distant part of some other human, in their own small illuminated corner, whose life is occurring at this very moment, in parallel. There might be a little girl marveling at the light cast from your window as I type this, and you would never know it.

*

Now, the cake:

It’s from Nigel Slater’s beautiful book Ripe. It’s a pear cake. No—it’s an almond cake, scented with brown sugar; with a hearty, courageous crumb; topped with the most beautiful mess of pears: pears that have been simmered in butter and cinnamon, that have been doused in maple syrup, that have created—in this process—the most luscious, sticky syrup clinging to every bite.

It really is a lovely thing. And, perhaps most importantly, it is a perfect fall thing—it is cake that is also nourishing. It tastes like the season.

If you take care not to over-bake it, your crumb will be less firm, slightly more on the ethereal side, not as dry. That’s what you should do. But, if you forget about your cake for a moment while you are reading something—as I did, in my bedroom—you can also rest assured that your slightly over-baked cake will remain moist with maple syrup–drunk pears in every bite. And, in this state, you can also eat it out of hand.

New York friends, I wish I could share this with you. We could feel happy, at least, to have the taste of pear on our tongues, no matter the weather.

Until soon. 

Almond Cake with Pears, Maple Syrup, and Cinnamon

Adapted from Ripe by Nigel Slater

Nigel calls this "a cake of pears, muscovado, and maple syrup." I couldn't find muscovado sugar, so I dropped it both in recipe and name. But you can use it here instead of the brown sugar, if you are so inclined.  

Cake:
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup (scant) light brown sugar 
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup group almonds 
3 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pears:
3 ripe pears (I used Concorde)
4 teaspoons unsalted butter
2 generous pinches cinnamon 
3 tablespoons maple syrup (plus more for serving)


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch round cake pan and line with parchment; the parchment should extend over the edge of the pan on two sides to make the cake easy to remove. Butter the parchment and dust the pan with flour, tapping out the excess. 

Peel and core the pears, and chop them into 1/3-1/2 inch pieces. Place them in a shallow pan with the butter and cinnamon, and cook over medium heat for 10-12 minutes, or until just softened, stirring occasionally. Add the maple syrup to the pan—the juices will bubble up; stir the mixture once or twice, and remove the pears from the heat. 

Cream together the butter and sugars in a large bowl (I do this with a wooden spoon, but you could use an electric mixer too). In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Add the ground almonds to the flour mixture. In a small bowl, beat the eggs and milk. Add about 1/3 of the eggs to the butter and stir to combine; then add 1/3 of the flour mixture and stir. Repeat this process until all of the ingredients are combined (do not over-mix). Stir in the vanilla extract. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth out the top. Pour the pears and all of their sticky syrup over the cake in an even layer. 

Begin checking the cake at 50 minutes. It should be golden all over, and a toothpick, when inserted into  the cake (avoiding the fruit, if possible), should come out clean. 

Nigel suggest serving this with a little cream and maple syrup. I forgot about this part when it came time for me to eat the cake—but I would try it next time. He also suggests that it can be consumed warm. It is also the sort of thing that you can grab a slice of and eat out of hand. And, as I can attest to at this very moment, it makes a very good breakfast. 

In Many Ways

In many ways, it was doomed from the start. Sure, it had a beautifully taken photograph; yes, the parchment around the edges was perfectly crisped and browned; and indeed, those lemon slices looked caramelized and tart and toothsome. It could have gone a different way. Perhaps if I hadn’t been in the process of moving box-loads of historical relics out of my apartment, I might have been paying closer attention to things—I may have been able to intervene earlier on. But it had to happen, one of these days: that I would bake something that wouldn’t live up to its cookbook portrait, that needed serious modification, that was, perhaps, well intentioned, but not quite able to fulfill.

Today, my friends, apparently, is that day.

I knew from the start that I probably shouldn’t be baking another loaf cake. I had this one success a couple of weeks ago, and I should have left it at that for a bit. I was planning to offer you the following by way of excuses for this next loaf cake: (1) this one is made with butter not olive oil, and so we could compare and contrast; (2) I am defenseless before Nigel Slater and his beautiful photographs, and his brief jots of writing, and the way in which he chronicles, so simply, in so unadorned a way, the pleasures of cooking and eating; and (3) I’ve been reading way too much lately about the Great War.

I know that this last bit may come as a shock to any sane, mildly intelligent person out there. What on earth does loaf cake have to do with the Great War? Well, the answer, of course, is nothing really, nothing whatsoever. But I’ve been reading this book, primarily because I can’t seem to focus my mind on the sort of reading that I usually do, and in this book (which is really quite wonderful, actually) there is this section about the kinds of things that British troops at the front received as care packages while they were away at war. They received letters, and photographs, and news from home, of course, but they also received food—all manner of perishable and nonperishable things, including tarts, cakes, eggs, butter, fruit, and even fresh flowers “for the table” (specifically, violets and primroses). The idea of this passage is to point out the incredibly ironic, terribly sad, entirely ghastly proximity of these soldiers to their homes in England. They were at the front on the Sommes or in Amiens or in Ypres, but they were often just several hours away from home, a place that could be reached by boat along the Channel, and that was, in many cases, close enough to receive cakes and tarts from. This section of the book contains numerous humorous anecdotes about the sorts of food items that the troops received, including one letter from a captain in which he instructs his wife to package all future fruit tarts that she ships to him in cardboard rather than tin. (“I… received your parcel quite safe… I am sorry to say though that the tart had gone bad. I was so mad as I just felt like a bit of tart then too. I think the tin box done it. I don’t think a tin box is as good as a cardboard box or wood box for something in the tart line.”)

I won’t go on and on about this, but suffice it to say that it got me thinking: what could one make that would be sturdy enough to ship a long way, if one were pressed to the task? I might, I thought to myself, occasionally have something that I would like to send by the post; something that would hopefully arrive in one piece and that would still be delicious—perhaps even more delicious than when it was first baked?—once it got there. I settled on the idea of a loaf cake. And, specifically, this loaf cake, by Nigel Slater, with its lemon and brown sugar promises, its drizzle of lemon syrup, its luscious appearance, glossy finish, and parchment-wrapped exterior. This thing looked like it was built to travel. Perhaps it would be the kind of baked good that one could ship on, say, Mother’s Day, or for a friend’s birthday.

But alas, no. Not really at all.

Of course, I did just try it when it was first out of the oven; I haven’t given it time to settle yet; and I haven’t given myself time to warm up to it—but it’s not usually a good sign when one is not overcome with excitement with the thing that one has just baked. The just-out-of-the-oven moment should be filled with blissful enthusiasm, pride, satisfaction, and fulfillment—not sighs, frowns, and a scrunched, quizzical brow.

But I’m giving you the wrong idea here. It’s not a bad cake exactly, it’s just not amazing, and I find it to be too sweet. I’m also not singing home the praises of the lemon and brown sugar combination, though I really thought I would be. And it’s a little too sticky, and not in a way that I find appealing. To Nigel’s credit (and I do feel that he deserves a lot of credit; I may have been entirely to blame for the outcome of this cake), I did make one significant modification—I cut the amount of butter nearly by half. But I just couldn’t see, when it came down to it, how on earth I was going to be able to put 4 sticks of butter into a loaf cake—4 sticks of butter!! I consulted some other pound cake recipes and found that 2 sticks seemed to be a more generally accepted number, so that’s what I used.

Granted, I probably should have adjusted some other proportions once I made this change (for instance, the quantity of sugar), and I didn’t. I take full responsibility.

Next time, if there was going to be a next time, I would increase the amount of ground almonds, use a mixture of brown and granulated sugars, and perhaps I would even use oil instead of butter.

My favorite part of this cake is the lovely garnish of sliced lemons that adorns the top of it in a sort of haphazard meander. It’s a beautiful, rustic touch. And those lemon slices have been simmered in brown sugar and water, giving them a slightly caramelized quality and a beautiful, glimmering sheen. I like what this cake strives for. I like what the garnish beckons for it.

Maybe one day I’ll revisit it. For now, make this instead.

Last Night (and a Morning Pancake)

Last night, unfortunately, brought more disappointment in the heartache department. And this morning, up at 5 am as I was, contemplating love, and life, and the meaning of the universe (I can figure this stuff out by 10 am, right?), I feel, sadly, that the orange-ricotta-pancake high that I was on since yesterday is now but a dim wave, lapping lazily against my ocean’s floor.

But, oh!, look at those photos… billowy stacks flecked with the zest of an orange, bites of airy ricotta, swirling in a puddle of maple syrup and melted butter on my ever-so-slightly-warmed plate! Surely one cannot truly despair when visions of orange and ricotta whipped majestically into a sort of “cake” made in a “pan” are before them? Surely…

It takes a lot of courage to get up in the morning sometimes and to face the computer screen and to think, in one’s solitary state, I can begin again; there will be many more mornings, better than this one; they will be orange-and-ricotta scented; there will be happiness—and in fact, as they always say (those optimistic types), it won’t always be this way, things will get better. And it would all be true. I just know it somehow; perhaps it’s the cook in me—she’s optimistic by nature, she knows somehow that when your first pancake has burned and your butter is a browned, greasy mess in the middle of your too-small pan, that you can scrape it clean and start again. You can find a masculine, nonstick griddle who needs but a little heat (no grease!) to get things sizzling… but I’m mixing metaphors here.

Alas, it was this way with the pancakes. The first batch was a total flop. But it seemed so promising!, I thought wistfully to myself. And it was, in fact, promising and more than that, once I saddled my determination—got the hunger in me to twist itself out of defeatism—and began again, with a new pan and a new strategy that felt, how should I say this?, more like me.

The recipe is promising and delicious and all of the things that you want out of a Saturday morning when you have a bit of time on your hands (just a bit) and the need for something warm and sizzling to perfume your entire kitchen and the neighbor’s hallway. As I learned from Nigel Slater, from whom this recipe derives, it’s also an excellent afternoon snack, to be taken, preferably, with a good friend, accompanied by a nice chat, some new ideas kicked around, a few hearty sarcastic cracks at the whole enterprise of love, and tea, of course. That was how it was for me. I ate these twice in one day. Once alone, a stack of three warm cakes on the plate, a generous pat of butter, and a drizzle of maple syrup, with my coffee; and then again, later, with my good friend S., with tea and syrup and a bit of Greek yogurt on the side.

Both times were good, for different reasons.

You begin by mixing together ricotta cheese, sugar, egg yolks, and orange zest. Then you mix into that some flour, an impossibly small amount, and then gently fold into this mixture egg whites that have been whipped into peaks. The whole thing at this point is nothing if not luscious—light and fragrant and simply beaming—it will transport you. 

If you succeed at folding in the whites without utterly deflating them, you will also feel proud, as I did (if you didn’t, don’t worry!, you can start again!, no one can see you in there, in the privacy of your own kitchen). You will look at your light-as-air mixture, and you will think, ha! look what I did!

Nigel suggests cooking these in large tablespoonfuls in a nonstick pan with melted butter. Maybe this works for him—I’m sure his pancakes are divine, and I’m sure I would gladly eat them at his kitchen counter any day—but the method didn’t work for me. I tried it, but my heart wasn’t in it from the start. I’ve never much liked pancakes that have been cooked in butter—I prefer the thin crust that forms when you cook them in nothing whatsoever except for the heat of the griddle, warmed until a drop of water dances chaotically across the surface. So that’s what I did, after the first batch came out all manner of burned and blackened and too greasy for anyone’s good.

At first it seemed that the griddle technique wouldn’t work—the pancakes seemed to be sticking… I was beside myself with grief. But I just tried to be patient. I waited, and waited. I waited until the edges of each little cake became slowly outlined in a light brown and until little, discrete bubbles seemed to open, ever so slightly, onto each surface. Then I turned them. And I won’t conceal the fact that I was utterly pleased with myself when I did.

Orange and ricotta pancakes—you and me are back on.

Orange and Ricotta Pancakes (adapted from Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries)

I should say that The Kitchen Diaries: A Year in the Kitchen with Nigel Slater is a beautiful book; if you like simple ingredients lists and honest, elegant prose, this book is for you.

1 cup ricotta cheese (store-bought ricotta works great)

4 tablespoons sugar

3 large eggs, separated

1 orange, the zest of which has been finely grated, avoiding the pith

1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

Butter, syrup, and orange wedges for serving

Combine the sugar, ricotta, egg yolks, and orange zest in a large mixing bowl. You can grate the orange zest directly into the bowl, no need to make this a separate step. Stir in the flour. Beat the egg whites in a bowl until semi-stiff peaks form (see the photo), and then gently fold this into the ricotta mixture. Nigel recommends a “surely but gently” method that I found was a good way to think about this folding process.

Warm a griddle. When a drop of water dances madly over the surface, bringing a smile to your face, begin dropping heaping tablespoonfuls of batter onto the griddle. I got four pancakes on at once. I felt that it helped to delicately smooth the batter into a circle, using a very light touch. You are not looking for perfection here, just rustic beauty. Cook the pancakes 1-2 minutes, until the edges begin to brown and a faint bubble or two cracks open on the surface, then flip them. Continue cooking until the bottom of each pancake is nicely browned and the pancakes are puffed.

Serve them while they are hot—I recommend a pat of sweet butter and a drizzle of cold syrup; Nigel likes a little melted apricot jam and some confectioners’ sugar.

Just eat them how you like them. And marvel at how nourished you feel with each delicate, cheesy crumb.

Notes: I cut the sugar by 1 tablespoon from the original; in the batch I made, I used 4 1/2 tablespoons rather than the recommended 5, but I still felt that it was a bit too sweet, so I’ve cut it further to 4 tbsp. in the recipe above. Use your judgment based on your own taste for sweet things—I prefer desserts and breakfasts to not be too sweet in general, but you may feel differently. These reheat beautifully if consumed later in the day, and I would imagine the next day as well. I heated them on a parchment-lined baking tray in a 350 degree oven.