Wednesday 24 June 2015

Rhubarb and Orange Cake

Our rhubarb patch hasn't been as productive as usual this year, and is already showing signs that we won't be harvesting much more. I only needed 400g for this recipe, but had to throw away several stems which were just too tough and woody to use. I think the less prolific growth is probably because last winter wasn't cold enough - rhubarb seems to need a really cold spell to perform at it's best. Although it's not a major problem, and many people say that you shouldn't harvest field rhubarb past the end of June, anyway, it's quite sad to say good-bye to rhubarb for another year!

On the whole, the fruit and vegetable garden isn't doing very well this year - June has been colder than usual, with less sunshine, and nothing is growing very fast. We had good weather at the right time for the apple blossom, though, so I have high hopes for a good harvest later in the year  - at the moment it looks as if we may actually have to thin the fruit, although there's a thing called 'June drop' apparently, so we'll wait a while before deciding whether or not thinning is needed.

At this time of the year it's good to use recipes which make a little rhubarb go a long way, and this Rhubarb and Orange Cake, from  Good Food, is a recipe I'll be returning to in future. It's very similar to another favourite recipe from Waitrose, for a cake with the same name, but the Waitrose recipe uses less flour and eggs, which results in a denser, more moist cake better suited to a dessert than a cake for the tea table, or coffee time. The Good Food cake was light and very well flavoured, and thanks to a few tips in the comments about the recipe, the fruit didn't sink and it wasn't too moist.

My oranges were quite small so I used the zest from two of them, but the juice of only one (which was 60mls) as I was mindful of the commentators who said they found the cake too moist. (In fact, the cake was a little crumbly when first cut, and I wondered if I had been too mean with the liquid, but the following day it was just right, so I wouldn't increase the liquid!) I also cut the rhubarb stalks into quite thin pieces (about 1cm), as some people found that large pieces of fruit sank to the bottom of the cake.  I used a small proportion of light muscovado sugar in the cake batter (30g with 200g caster), as I didn't have any golden caster sugar. Apart from these small changes I followed the recipe closely. My cake cooked in 60 minutes, and needed covering for the last 20 minutes to prevent over-browning. I would have been happier with a few more flaked almonds on top (I was using the last of a pack), but overall, I'm very pleased with this cake.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I simply love this cake!

Snowy said...

Love the flavour combination; looks delicious. Our rhubarb isn't as good this year either.

thecelticcookinshanghai said...

I love rhubarb and recipes like this make me wish I could get my hands on it here in Shanghai. I have never seen it on sale here.