Mini Rhubarb Lemon Buttermilk Bundt Cakes

I have wanted a bundt tin for so long so I was very excited when I found a yellow silicone mini bundt tin in Lidl for just £2! I’m normally quite good at resisting tins and kitchenware that I know aren’t exactly vital to my collection, but this was too much of a bargain to resist. And I’m happy I didn’t because it gave me the excuse to make these tasty little rhubarb cakes. They turned out so cute that I want to make all my muffins and cupcakes in this tray in the future! I slightly overfilled the tin, hence the pirouetting look to my cakes, but no one was complaining about having a bigger portion. Rhubarb and orange is a classic combination but lemon and rhubarb work really well together too, giving a fresh and zesty result. I didn’t want to hide the pretty bundt shapes, but if you were just using a muffin tin I think a lemon glace icing would be perfect on these to add a little extra sweetness. Because I adapted this from a muffin recipe, they are not super sweet on their own and technically count as breakfast food. What is not to like? You can find the recipe below – enjoy!Mini Rhubarb Lemon Buttermilk Bundts adapted from this recipe

Ingredients: 175g caster sugar
200g rhubarb, halved lengthways then diced into 1cm pieces
1 lemon, zested
2 tbsp sunflower oil
1 egg
125ml buttermilk, or 125ml milk and 1tsp of lemon juice left to stand for 5mins 
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method: 1. Heat oven to 180’C. Spray a mini bundt tin with cake release spray, or line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Stir the sugar, lemon zest and rhubarb together and set aside.
3. Beat the oil, egg and buttermilk together. Pour onto the sugary rhubarb and stir until combined.
4. Now, add the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and stir until just evenly incorporated.
5. Quickly spoon into the cases, filling ¾ full. Bake for 15-18 mins until golden and springy to the touch. Cool on a wire rack and dust with icing sugar.

Rhubarb and Stem Ginger Pie

I never make pies. In total I’ve only made 6 pies on here in nearly 6 years of blogging – terrible odds considering I normally love anything involving pastry. The last full size pie I made on here was way back in 2011 – the classic apple pie. I’m not sure why I’ve been avoiding them but it was clearly time to change. This may be cheating a little, as it is only a single crust, but it was so delicious I don’t think anyone was complaining. Rhubarb is one of my favourite fruits, and rhubarb and ginger are a classic combination so I knew this would be good. Opinions were divided in my house over the stem ginger in the pastry. I liked the spice it added to the pie, but the texture was maybe a bit strange, so to compromise you could easily just stick with ground ginger to provide a bit of heat. With a splash of crème anglaise (always practicing for school) I was sold and the pie did not last very long in my house. It was also easily adaptable – I had slightly less rhubarb and so made a smaller pie and used the spare pastry to make little ginger biscuits to keep us going while the pie baked. You can find the recipe here – enjoy!

Rhubarb and Vodka Jellies

I’ve been trying to expand my baking this year. After a while, the constant rotation of cakes and cookies can leave me stuck for inspiration and I’ve enjoyed trying new things this year, such as the tablet and pannacotta. Jelly is really reverting back to proper childhood or nursery food – I have memories of traffic light jellies with different fruit suspended in the layers – but I think the addition of vodka in today’s jelly brings it up to adult level! However, I still lack the patience required waiting for jelly to set…This jelly took a long time to set, and for a while I was afraid that I’d be serving vodka cocktails with dinner. However, eventually they did and my friends were super excited when I told them  what was coming up! Forced rhubarb gives this jelly such a pretty pink colour and the addition of the cointreau adds another layer of flavour, reflecting the classic combination of orange and rhubarb.
The vodka only adds a slight kick (2tbsp are in the 3 jellies I made) and if you didn’t want it you could easily substitute it for something else, even just water. I hadn’t poached rhubarb before this – always roasted – and I thought it might lose some of its flavour but the sugar syrup that forms the base of the jelly really absorbs the rhubarb flavour and colour well. I really enjoyed the final result, it had a good smooth texture, refreshing taste and I liked the look of the poached rhubarb suspended in the jelly. You can find the recipe here – I halved it and still managed to make 3 decent sized jellies. Enjoy!

White Chocolate Pannacotta with Roasted Rhubarb

I love rhubarb, and I’ve noticed that I often seem to pair it with similar flavours. The early season forced rhubarb has such a shocking pink colour and distinctive tart taste that I serve it with creamy, white and almost blander flavours to let the rhubarb shine. One of my favourite dishes I’ve ever blogged was this Rhubarb Tart from Mother’s Day last year and with its rich cream cheese filling it is a prime example of my way with rhubarb. Similarly with the rhubarb custard tart where the baked vanilla filling contrasted nicely with the bold rhubarb. So when I had a lot of rhubarb that needed using up I made one unusual recipe I have to blog in the coming weeks, but used the rest in roasted rhubarb with white chocolate panna cotta. Well, who am I to break with such good flavour combinations?This time I opted to make my creamy background flavour a little bit more interesting and created a white chocolate pannacotta instead of just vanilla. I liked the result – it definitely felt rich and indulgent and had a really nice smooth texture despite the quite large amount gelatine. It also lasted for a week in the fridge so it was nice to have it always ready as a quick treat! White chocolate is a tricky flavour to make truly shine and I think in this case it would be more an issue of noticing if it wasn’t there rather than directly being able to pinpoint that the sweetness coming from chocolate. On their own the pannacottas were possibly a little bit too decadent, and I think they need an accompaniment to keep them interesting – another roasted fruit such as plums or fresh raspberries I’m sure would work well too. However I loved the rhubarb and found it the perfect thing to go alongside the pannacotta and delicious to eat just on its own as well. Enjoy!

White Chocolate Pannacotta with Roasted Rhubarb
Serves 5

Pannacotta: 500ml/18fl oz double cream
150ml/5½fl oz milk
100g/3½oz white chocolate, broken into pieces
25g/1oz sugar
4 Dr. Oetker gelatine sheets, soaked for 5-10 minutes in warm water, then squeezed dry

Roasted Rhubarb: 250g rhubarb, cut into even pieces
1 orange, zest and juice
5tbsp golden caster sugar

1. Heat the cream and milk in a saucepan over a medium heat until simmering.

2. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the white chocolate and sugar until the ingredients have melted and the mixture is well combined.

3. Remove the pan from the heat and add the gelatine leaves. Stir until the gelatine leaves have melted then set the mixture aside until it has completely cooled.

4. Pour the pannacotta mixture into ramekins, then chill in the fridge for five hours, or until set firm.

5. Meanwhile, tip the rhubarb into a tin so that they are in a single but snug layer (I used a 22cm square tin). Add the zest and juice of the orange and the sugar. Stir together to coat the rhubarb, then cover with foil and roast at 180’C for 15mins until tender but still holding its shape.

6. To serve, dip the ramekin bases and sides in warm water to loosen the pannacotta from the moulds. Turn out one pannacotta into the centre of each of plate and serve the rhubarb alongside.

Rhubarb and Custard Tart

In American cooking, rhubarb and strawberries seem to be a majorly popular flavour combination. Here in England, its rhubarb and custard. Sharp bright pink rhubarb and creamy yellow custard – it’s definitely a strong rival to rhubarb and strawberry. Whether in two bold stripes in a hard boiled sweet, hot custard poured over a rhubarb crumble or both flavours combined together in a huge luxurious tart like today, it’s always a winner.I’ve been wanting to make  a rhubarb and custard tart for a while now and had several different recipes saved in my ever expanding Sweet To Make file. I was reminded of this idea when I came across an amazing looking Custard Tart in the fabulous book Street Food Revolution but decided to save that for a special occasion due to the 12 (!) egg yolks it requires. I eventually chose a John Torode recipe, because surely the co-juduge of Masterchef will have trustworthy recipes (and also something in me always trusts BBC Food recipes). It also was not extravagant with eggs, seemed simple and intrigued me as to how the 300ml of double cream would ever set into a firm filling.But I needn’t have worried, it all turned out ok. More than ok! This tart was so good. I seem to be loving the mix of tart and creamy flavours at the moment, first the pannacotta, then this combination of the rich custard and vanilla poached rhubarb that still has a hint of its sharpness. I know it’s a bit past the rhubarb season now as I made this a few weeks ago, but I didn’t want to let a whole year go by without posting this. You never know, some lucky people might still have some growing or have been clever and frozen some for the winter. If not, I’m sure the combination of raspberries or blackberries with custard would be just as delicious. Enjoy!

Sticky Rhubarb and Ginger Cake

I may have left this post and recipe a little late in the rhubarb season now (not helped by Blogger’s breakdown the last few days), but this cake was so good and rhubarb itself is one of my favourite fruits so I could not let the whole season go by without a rhubarb post. Last year, it was this totally irresistible tart, this year it’s a totally irresistible cake.The cake came from the little book Jamie Oliver released to raise money for Red Nose Day and this recipe caught my eye immediately. Although we are now used to having raspberries, mangoes and strawberries available pretty much all year round as they are imported from abroad, rhubarb remains a fruit available just during its fairly short season – and even then it can be tricky to find. Personally, I love rhubarb. It’s got a gorgeous bright pink colour, it’s tart, its different and above all, it’s delicious!When we’re in Suffolk, the garden has a large rhubarb patch and so I was able to use our very own fruit for this cake. I wanted to make as much use of it as possible and so doubled the given amount in the recipe. I also stirred some through the cake mixture instead of just laying it over the top – and whilst these changes were good, I felt that the cake could still hold even more rhubarb! The cake turned out interesting though – I was not a fan straight out of the oven, but the day after baking it I loved it. Meanwhile, my Mum was the exact opposite – preferring it warm out the oven and not the next day. I’m not sure why this was, but basically if you don’t like this the first day then be patient.The cake contains dark brown sugar and golden syrup, so the sponge is deep and caramelly in flavour. The little specks of ginger dotted throughout add a welcome touch of heat ad change of texture to the cake without being overpowering. The rhubarb syrup saved from cooking the rhubarb is divine but worth pouring all over the cake to stock it full of flavour. All in all, a very interesting, tasty and perfect spring time bake. You can find the recipe (with the original amount of rhubarb) here.

Rhubarb Tart

Happy Mothers Day! Today I am celebrating everything brilliant about my Mum, and that certainly takes much celebrating.I have so much to thank my Mum for. This blog, in particular, would be a very different place if it wasn’t for her. When I’m stuck for inspiration on what to bake, or my mind cannot find an “angle” for each post, she’s always there with an idea, a book, an article to show me. Even today’s recipe was her find, and boy am I thankful. My email inbox is full of emails from her, even if we are just one room apart, with links to gorgeous recipes and “This looks nice” , “Make this!” or “Isn’t this pretty…". Without those recipes and ideas I would never have broadened what I cook and the periods in between posts would be much longer! Of course it isn’t just because of this blog that I am thankful towards my Mum. As I grow up I constantly realise little ways I’m like her, little habits I’ve inherited. There’s a little tune we both hum after we hang up the phone. There’s the shared sense of humour, shared love and dislike for different people. She’s a sensible one my Mum and always has the best advice and encouragement for me when I feel down or doubtful. Funny, kind, loving, beautiful: a worthy recipient of this pretty pink tart. This tart, even if I say so myself, was gorgeous. Light cream cheese pastry, fabulously smooth Cointreau-cream cheese filling and the stunning topping of bright rhubarb. The rhubarb was bought from Greg Wallace’s new restaurant, Wallace and Co. , and was delicious. After stewing the rhubarb, you boil up the rhubarb juices to a thick syrup. This method creates more syrup than you need for the tart, but is so perfect spread over yoghurt or drizzled extra over your own slice of tart. You can find the recipe here, to save me typing it, and although this author did not enjoy it please do not be put off! I subbed in Cointreau for the Muscat as orange and rhubarb is a marvellous combination and it honestly was scrumptious. So, Happy Mother’s Day Mum, I love you! X