Rhubarb cake

Besides triathlons, one of my biggest passions is cooking and baking - especially baking. Unfortunately, baking leads to eating, so I don’t bake often. When I do, though, I’ll try to post some recipes here. Today, I’ve made a batch of rhubarb cake. This is from a recipe that came from one of my Dad’s aunts. Since my Dad favors pie over cake, my mother didn’t make this cake often, but it was (and still is) one of my favorites. Interestingly enough, before today, I’d only made it myself one other time. That first time that I made it, it came out extremely moist – too moist for my taste, so I have modified the recipe just a bit.

Rhubarb Cake

serves 12

½ C butter or margarine
1 ½ C brown sugar
1 egg
1 t vanilla
1 C sour or buttermilk
2 ¼ C flour
½ t salt
1 t baking soda
2 C finely chopped rhubarb

Topping:

½ C sugar
1 t cinnamon
½ C chopped nuts

Cream butter, brown sugar, egg, vanilla and buttermilk. Mix flour, salt and baking soda in separate bowl. Add flour mixture to butter mixture. Stir. Add the rhubarb. Pour into a 9x13” pan. Then combine the topping ingredients and sprinkle over cake batter. Bake at 350° for 35-45 minutes. (The baking time is where I’ve had to do most of the adjustments with this recipe. The original recipe says to bake for 25 – 30 minutes. The first time I made this, I started testing at 30 minutes and it wasn’t done. I left it in for another 5 minutes and it tested done, but it was still pretty gooey in the center of the cake. Today I started testing at 35 minutes, still not done. I ended up leaving it for another 10 minutes, making the total baking time 45 minutes). Now, I do not have a thermometer in my oven, so it *is* possible that my oven temperature is off; however, I have no troubles with other recipes. I suspect the moisture content of the rhubarb plays a significant role in the moistness of the cake.

Since writing this up, I have googled "rhubarb cake" and came up with several almost identical recipes. Hmmmm. So much for this being an old family recipe! Incidentally, they all say to bake at least 45 minutes, some closer to an hour. Just goes to show - I should have googled it first and left it in to bake a little longer.

Rough calorie count = 343 cal