Rhubarb Cake

A simple snacking cake that uses a common garden vegetable: rhubarb. If you have friends with a garden, ask them if they have rhubarb so you don't have to buy it. Every gardener I know has more than they need. Remember that only the stalks are edible. The leaves contain too much oxalic acid (it's actually the chemical that gives rhubarb its distinctive tart flavor), making them poisonous to humans.

If you have an electric mixer, you can make this cake.

You can use a food processor to chop the rhubarb, or chop it with a knife.

Snacking Rhubarb Cake
(serves 12)

butter or non-sticking cooking spray for greasing pan
1 ½ cups fresh or frozen and thawed rhubarb, finely chopped
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar
½ + ¼ cup white sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 cup natural applesauce (little added sugar)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
¾ teaspoon baking soda (use 1 teaspoon at sea level)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9" x 13" baking dish well with butter or non-stick cooking spray.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter, light brown sugar, and ½ cup white sugar in a large bowl. Beat in the egg, vanilla, and applesauce until combined. The batter may break (mine did) but don't worry about it. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Add to the batter and mix gently until nearly completely incorporated. Add the rhubarb and stir until it is a uniform batter. Pour into the prepared dish. In a small bowl, mix together ¼ cup sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle uniformly over the top of the cake. Bake for 35 minutes.

When the cake comes out of the oven, run a knife along the edge to release the cake from the pan. Allow to cool completely before serving from the pan. The cake is very moist and sweet. I don't believe it needs any embellishment, but some sliced strawberries would be OK.

Tested at altitude from a recipe at http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/cake, a great source for all things rhubarb.

Photo credit: By RhubarbFarmer (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Pumpkin Apple Breakfast Bread

A not-too-sweet quick bread with chunks of apple and the flavors of Autumn

I am a big fan of quick breads. They are yummy for snacks and as an on-the-go breakfast. But, so many quick breads are really cakes in disguise. They are so damn sweet they make my teeth ache. Admittedly, I don't eat a lot of sweet things. Which is my way of saying, this quick bread is not very sweet. I'm just giving you heads-up on that. Don't expect cake. If you need to sweeten it up, slather on some apricot jam or apple butter. It does taste of the season with pumpkin, apple, and warm spices like cinnamon, but minus a lot of the sugar.

I specify separate spices but you can use premixed pumpkin pie spice instead. Substitute 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice for the ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

Pumpkin Apple Breakfast Bread
(makes 1 9"x5" loaf, about 12 servings)

non-stick cooking spray
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
½ teaspoon baking powder (use 1 tsp. at sea level)
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
2 large eggs
½ cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup unsweetened pumpkin puree
⅓ cup low-fat or whole milk
½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 apple, peeled, cored, and cut into ¼" dice

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9" x 5" loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a medium bowl combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, both sugars, and the oil. Beat until smooth - brown sugar tends to be lumpy. Add the pumpkin puree and milk. Beat again until well-combined. With a spatula, mix in dry ingredients, walnuts (if using), and apple pieces. Do not over-mix; mix only until all the flour is incorporated into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Tap a few times on the counter to shake out any big air bubbles in the batter. Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean with no liquid batter sticking to it. Set the loaf to cool on a rack for 10 minutes. Turn out and let it finish cooling to room temperature. You won't be able to slice it until it's completely cool. To store, wrap tightly in plastic wrap. It can be stored at room temperature for about 3 days. After that, store in the fridge to prevent mold.

Walnut Tart from Saint-Paul-de-Vence

I made this cake yesterday for a party. It's not a traditional cake, more like a tart made to look like a cake. It took all day. I'm not going to post the recipe since it's 6 pages long. There are 3 separate components and then assembly.

First you make the cake filling. Then you make a double crust of rich pastry. Line the tart pan and fill it.