Swirled Rhubarb Bars

My husband and I recently visited our local farmer’s market. We are typically there for just a short time, as we pretty much know what we are looking for. In this case, it was good that our trip was short, as just as we made it back to the car, it started pouring. We were certainly fortunate to miss the rain, and we had found the items we were looking for, so all was good.

The main thing I wanted to get was rhubarb; I had found a recipe last year, but it was too late to find rhubarb. I wasn’t going to miss it this year! We did purchase rhubarb, but we had also bought some different jams, including rhubarb jam. Since the first part of this recipe was to make rhubarb jam, I made a crumble with the rhubarb and used the jam for these bars.

With the premade jam, these bars came together quickly. They take a while to bake, but your time in the kitchen isn’t long. I will say that the bars had more swirls before I baked them, but it evens out some in the oven. These cut beautifully and have that wonderful tang that you get with rhubarb. I wasn’t sure about including the white chocolate, but they add a little bite of sweetness. 

Swirled Rhubarb Bars
1 1/3 cups (284g) packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
10 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups (180g) flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup white chocolate, chips or chopped
About 3/4 cup rhubarb jam

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8" square pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine the brown sugar, salt, and vanilla. Melt the butter in the microwave (or in a small pan over low heat) and pour over the brown sugar mixture. Whisk for about a minute; the mixture will lighten and become thicker. Add the eggs and whisk until combined. 

In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder. Stir into the mixture, and when the flour almost disappears into the batter, add the white chocolate and stir to incorporate.

Spread the batter in the prepared pan. Drop teaspoonfuls of rhubarb jam on top of the batter. Use a small knife to swirl the jam into the bars.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until set and a thin knife inserted into the center comes out almost clean. Allow the bars to cool completely before cutting into squares.

Recipe from King Arthur Baking

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam Bars

It’s that time of year when the strawberries and the rhubarb are ripe! Our weather has been extra rainy lately, so it seems like a lot of our produce is taking a little longer this year. I don’t mind that too much as I am hopeful for a summer that is more moderate. Perhaps that is too much to ask these days. One of my husband’s colleagues gave him some strawberry rhubarb jam, and while we wanted to have some to eat on toast, we both figured it would make for a tasty bar cookie.

That very week, this recipe popped up in my social media feed, and my husband wanted to make them right away. This recipe uses 1 cup of jam, for a 9” x 13” pan, which would use all the jam we had. I opted to make a half recipe in an 8” square pan, so that we would still have jam left. That made for a slightly thinner bar, which was ok.

I got these bars prepped, and then went to make the topping. I looked through all of my baking items and I was completely out of sliced almonds. I do use them a lot, so I suppose I understand, but that was very frustrating. I thought about topping the bars with some freeze-dried strawberries, but I figured those would burn. The thinner bar baked faster, which wasn’t surprising, but I could have taken them out of the oven about two minutes earlier and that would have been better. I could have also added more jam, as more jam is never wrong!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam Bars
¾ cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
½ cup almond flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 cup strawberry rhubarb jam

3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons butter, cold
¼ cup sliced almonds

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter and sugar and mix on medium until light. Add the almond flour and vanilla and mix to incorporate. Add the salt and flour and mix on low until the mixture becomes crumbly. Press the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.

Top the dough with the strawberry rhubarb jam.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, 2 tablespoons butter, and sliced almonds. Use your fingers to work the mixture into crumbs and sprinkle over the jam.

Bake for about 50 minutes, until the dough is baked through.

Allow the cookies to cool completely before cutting into bars.

Recipe from Sweet Recipeas

Rhubarb Cookies

If there is any vegetable that is a harbinger of spring, it is rhubarb. It is tart and around here, I only see it in the stores for a short time. Some people love it, and others don’t, and I have started enjoying it more and more. I read a lot of British cooking magazines, and rhubarb is very popular in those publications. You do most often find it paired with strawberries, as their sweetness balances the tartness of rhubarb. I do like that pairing, but I do think that rhubarb can stand on its own.

This recipe uses only rhubarb, but you roast the rhubarb with sugar, which does mellow it considerably. You may think that it takes too much time, but it is what makes these cookies. My house smelled fantastic while the rhubarb was roasting, but then you do need to wait for it too cool before making the cookies. Depending on how thick you cut the rhubarb, the roasted rhubarb will be more or less chunky. I mashed mine a bit, as I didn’t want large pieces of rhubarb in these cookies.

Once you have roasted the rhubarb, the cookies come together quickly. These cookies have the benefit of using vegetable shortening rather than butter. These are dairy-free, as long as you don’t add milk to the icing. I baked the first batch a touch too long, so I reduced the time. They don’t change much while baking, so you may want to flatten the cookies slightly. The icing was super thick, which was why I ended up adding some milk to thin it. Any sort of non-dairy milk would also work. These cookies are lovely- soft, with just a bit of sweetness. I love the icing especially; it sets off the entire cookie!

Rhubarb Cookies
1 pound rhubarb
½ cup sugar

3/4 cup vegetable shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup roasted rhubarb
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon rhubarb juice
Additional milk

Make the roasted rhubarb: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Slice the rhubarb and place it into a 9”x 13” pan. Add ½ cup sugar and stir to combine. Cover the pan with foil and roast for 30 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and mash the rhubarb slightly. Allow to cool. Separate the roasted rhubarb and the rhubarb juice, retaining both.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, mix the shortening and sugar on medium until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla and stir to combine. Add the roasted rhubarb and still on low to combine. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and stir on low until the dough comes together.

Scoop the cookies onto the prepared baking sheets. Flatten the cookies slightly with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 13-15 minutes, until the bottoms of the cookies are golden. Cool completely before icing.

Make the icing: in a small bowl whisk together the powdered sugar and rhubarb juice. Add milk as needed, until the icing is the proper drizzling consistency. Drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies.

Recipe from Tikkido.com

Rhubarb and Orange Cake

I grew up in an area where a lot of rhubarb was grown, but I can’t say that I was very familiar with it until a couple of years ago. In my memory, the only time I came across rhubarb was in strawberry rhubarb pie. My husband is quite fond of rhubarb and there are quite a few British desserts with rhubarb, so he is always encouraging me to bake with rhubarb. I bought a British cake baking magazine recently and it had the recipe for this cake, which looked wonderful.

I’m never quite sure how to pick good rhubarb. Is it ok if the stalks are fairly green? Will those be extra tart? Does it matter if the stalks are skinny or are the big ones better? Since I have no idea, I went with the medium sized stalks and mine we half green, half red. I got them at a local farm stand, so at least I knew that the rhubarb was fresh.

I was fairly worried that this cake would be too tart, but it was just right. The addition of the orange juice and zest balanced the tartness of the rhubarb. I also liked that the cake included ground almonds; I think that gives the cake more depth of flavor and texture. I did have a little bit of a problem with the cake sinking in the center when it cooled. I may have had too much liquid. The recipe called for medium eggs, which are very hard to get in the States. I also think that my orange was on the larger side, so the juice of the orange was too much juice. None the less, this cake had a wonderful combination of flavors, and it was a great way to use rhubarb beyond the traditional strawberry rhubarb pie.

Rhubarb and Orange Cake

14 ounces rhubarb, thickly sliced

10 ounces sugar, divided

1 cup butter, room temperature

Zest and juice of 1 small orange

8 ounces self-rising flour*

3-1/2 ounces ground almonds

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 eggs

2 tablespoons sliced almonds

Powdered sugar, for serving

In a medium bowl, combine the sliced rhubarb and 2 ounces of sugar; stir to combine. Set aside for 30 minutes, allowing the rhubarb to macerate.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9” springform pan and line the base of the pan with parchment paper.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the remaining 8 ounces of sugar, butter, orange juice and zest. Beat on medium until well blended. Add the flour, ground almonds, baking powder, and eggs; beat on medium until smooth. Fold in the rhubarb mixture. Spread the batter in the prepared pan.

Sprinkle the top of the cake with the sliced almonds and bake for 60-75 minutes, until a thin knife inserted in the cake comes out clean. Check the cake after 45 minutes; if the cake is browning too quickly, cover the cake loosely with foil. Remove the cake from the oven and cool for 15 minutes in the pan. Remove the sides of the springform pan and allow the cake to cool on a wire rack.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar to serve.

Recipe from BBC Good Food Bakes and Cakes

*I make my own self-rising flour by combining 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, and ½ teaspoon salt

Fresh Rhubarb Upside-Down Baby Cakes

 

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is for Rhubarb Upside Down Cakes. The TWD bakers wanted to be able to use in season rhubarb (well, it’s in season lots of places at least) so this recipe was selected. I recently made a pineapple upside down cake in a donut pan, so I was excited to try this baby cake recipe. The recipe calls for 4-inch round pans, which I didn’t have. I halved the recipe and used three 4” x 6” oval pans. It seemed to work just fine.

For such a little cake, these have quite a few steps. Make the caramel, layer on the rhubarb, make the butter cake. But I have to say, I really enjoyed making these little cakes! I wanted the rhubarb to look nice, so I took the time to lay the rhubarb in a decorative pattern. Each cake was a little different, and I thought they just looked grand! The patterns were still easy to see when the cakes were baked and inverted out of the pan. What cute little cakes.

The original recipe says that you could use any type of fruit, some of the ones mentioned I would never think of using. I like rhubarb and it’s grown locally around here, so I’m always happy to try a new rhubarb recipe. Don’t forget to check out how the other bakers did with this week’s recipe on the Tuesdays with Dorie site. Since I am traveling right now, I posted this really early, and when I wrote this post, the host of this week’s recipe had not yet been named. Look for that on the Tuesdays with Dorie site !

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, pages 244-246

Strawberry Rhubarb Cast Iron Skillet Crisp

This round of the recipe swap is Blogger’s Choice, where I get to pick any recipe from the blog I am assigned. I have been travelling quite a bit lately and this sort of swap is a lot easier for me to make sure I fulfill my part of the swap! I can always find something great and get it made in the two weeks that I have to make the recipe. For this round I got Jenni’s blog Dough See Dough. Thanks, as always to Sarah from A Taste of Home Cooking who organizes these recipe swaps.

I have made another recipe from Jenni’s blog, the Toffee Almond Magic Cookie Bars , which were a giant hit at our household. I was really excited to explore her blog and try another recipe. I actually pinned a couple of recipes and let my husband pick. He chose this strawberry rhubarb crisp. My husband is a fan of anything made in the cast iron skillet. 

I had some rhubarb in the freezer, and used that. I found that I would have liked about double the fruit filling. It seemed like there was too much topping and not enough fruit. I’m not sure if using fresh rhubarb would have been different; it seems like the frozen rhubarb broke down quite a bit when I defrosted it. I did like this, but I would just double the fruit. That would be healthier, right? Thanks to Jenni for this recipe and Sarah for organizing the recipe swaps!

Strawberry Rhubarb Cast Iron Skillet Crisp

2 cups chopped rhubarb

2 cups strawberries, sliced

3 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons flour

1 cup oats

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup nuts, chopped

1/4 cup sugar

6 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven 450 degrees. Have a 9 or 10-inch cast iron skillet ready.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the rhubarb, strawberries, 3 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons flour. Spread in the cast iron skillet.

In a medium bowl, stir together the oats, 12 cup flour, nuts and ¼ cup sugar. Add the melted butter and stir until the mixture is crumbly. Sprinkle on top of the rhubarb/strawberry mixture. 

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until topping is golden brown. Cool a few minutes and then serve warm (ideally with ice cream).

Recipe from Dough See Dough

Cinnamon Rhubarb Muffins

After our trip the other week to buy rhubarb, I now have a supply of it in the freezer. My dance teacher mentioned that she really loves rhubarb and had been unable to find it in the store. She was right, that was why we had taken a bit of a trip to get some. Since I often bring her treats when I go to dance class, I figured that I would make something for her with rhubarb. This muffin recipe seemed just perfect. 

I like making muffins, but they seem to get hard so quickly that I am often hesitant to make them as I typically bake in the evening and take them the next day. I had enough time to bake these in the afternoon before my evening ballet class, so they were still slightly warm. Muffins are at their best when they are still warm! She loved them and was so happy I made something with rhubarb.

These muffins retain the tartness of rhubarb, which is quite powerful for some folks. The cinnamon sugar topping offsets the tartness nicely, so you get the sweet, too. When writing up this recipe I realized that I left out ½ teaspoon of baking soda, but the muffins turned out just fine and seem to raise plenty with just the baking powder. Usually baking isn’t quite so forgiving, but I lucked out this time. 

2 cups flour

¾ cup sugar

2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup sour cream

2 eggs

½ cup butter, melted and cooled

1 teaspoon vanilla

1-1/2 cups sliced rhubarb

Cinnamon sugar, for topping

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 12 muffin cups with paper baking cups.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt and whisk to blend. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla until smooth. Stir the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture with a spatula until the batter just comes together; do not over mix. Gently stir in the rhubarb. Divide the batter among the muffin cups.

Sprinkle each muffin with cinnamon sugar. Bake the muffins 18-22 minutes, until golden brown, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 to 10 minutes and then remove from the pan and allow to cool on a wire rack. Serve warm.

Recipe from Inspired 2 Cook

Rhubarb Buckle with Ginger Crumb

My husband loves rhubarb and although we have had a cold spring, I figured that I could probably find some rhubarb in the store. Well I went to the store and what they had didn’t look very good. I grew up very close to Sumner, WA, which is the Rhubarb Pie Capital of the World. Ok, so I figured that I could find some good rhubarb there! My husband found Scholz Farm which is close to there and we decided to drive there and get some rhubarb.

When we drove up, the rhubarb plants were right there so we knew it would be fresh! Their rhubarb was beautiful and was really inexpensive. The farmers were there and they seemed so pleased that we were there. I love that about small places! I bought a couple of pounds and figured I used some and then freeze the rest. We were so glad that we made the trip to visit them.

I always see strawberry rhubarb recipes but my husband likes plain rhubarb, so I figured that this would be the perfect recipe. I love ginger and I thought that would be interesting with the tartness of the rhubarb. I always think buckles are more like crisps, but this one is very cake-like. A buckle is technically a cake with fruit mixed in with a crumb-like topping, so I guess this fits the definition. This was so good and I loved the ginger in this! I was never sure about how much I liked rhubarb, but I’m beginning to really like it. 

1/3 cup sugar

¼ cup flour

¼ cup finely chopped candied ginger

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1-3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon dried ginger

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

¾ cup buttermilk, room temperature

1 pound rhubarb, trimmed and thinly sliced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-inch round baking pan and line the bottom with a parchment paper round, butter the parchment.

Make the crumb: in a small bowl combine the sugar, flour, and candied ginger. Stir in the butter and form crumbs. Place the crumbs in the freezer while you make the cake.

In a small bowl combine the flour, baking powder, ginger, baking soda, and salt. In a large mixer bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating about a minute after each addition. Stir in the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour. Gently fold in the rhubarb.

Spread the batter into the prepared pan, and then sprinkle with the ginger crumb. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until lightly golden and form on top.

Allow to cool for about 15 minutes before removing from the pan to cool completely on a wire rack.

Recipe from Rustic Fruit Desserts by Cory Schreiber and Julie Richardson