The time has finally come round again: rhubarb season has started! From April to June you'll find the slightly tart stalks everywhere. So it's high time to bake a delicious sweet-and-sour rhubarb cake with shortcrust pastry, custard and a meringue topping.
Every year I'm delighted anew when I spot fresh rhubarb at the farm shop or at the market. I simply love this slightly tart vegetable! Yes, you read that right 😉 Technically speaking, rhubarb isn't a fruit at all, but a type of vegetable. It contains practically no sugar and aids digestion. That's why it was already being used as a remedy by the Chinese more than 4800 years ago. The stalks of the rhubarb contain lots of minerals as well as vitamins A & C. Thanks to the citric, malic and oxalic acid it contains, rhubarb tastes fruity and sour and combines beautifully with sweet doughs.
Something to remember: the more intense the red colour of the rhubarb, the less sour it tastes.
To balance out the acidity, in this recipe I combine the rhubarb with a sweet shortcrust pastry, a creamy vanilla custard and a fluffy layer of meringue. The result is a delicious combination of sweet & sour that literally almost melts on your tongue.
Anyone who doesn't have the patience or the time to stand in the kitchen for hours will love this recipe. Unlike many other recipes, the vanilla custard here is «made» straight in the oven. That means you don't have to go to the trouble of making a custard first — you simply stir all the ingredients together, pour the mixture over the rhubarb and your oven does the rest. Brilliant, isn't it?
You'll enchant everyone with this cake! And it's far easier and quicker to make than you'd think.
Rhubarb Cake with Meringue Topping
- Preparation15 min
- Cooking time30 min
- Baking time1 hr 15 min
- Total2 hr
- Calories250kcal
- Carbohydrates26gof which sugars 9 g
- Protein5g
- Fat14gof which saturated 8 g
- Fibre1g
per serving
Ingredients
Pastry
- 200 gr flour (type 405)
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 100 gr butter (cold, cubed)
- 60 gr sugar
- 1 egg
Filling
- 500 gr rhubarb
- 3 eggs (yolks only)
- 40 gr sugar
- 2 dl cream
- 40 gr cornflour
- 1/2 tsp vanilla powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2-3 drops Vanilla Madagascar (essential oil, if desired)
Method
Pastry
- Put all the ingredients into a bowl and knead with your hands into a smooth dough.
- Cover the finished dough and chill for 30 minutes.
Filling
- Clean the rhubarb, peel it and cut it into small pieces.
- Separate the eggs and put the yolks into a bowl. Add the sugar, cream, cornflour and vanilla and stir everything together.
- My tip: add 2 drops of Vanilla Madagascar to the mixture.
Finishing
- Line a 24 cm springform tin with baking paper and lightly grease the sides. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface, place it in the prepared tin, press it in and pull the edges up about 4 cm. Prick the base evenly all over with a fork.
- Spread the rhubarb pieces over the base and pour the mixture on top.
- Place the springform tin in the middle of the cold oven. Set the oven to 175 degrees top/bottom heat and bake for 45 minutes.
Meringue topping
- Whisk the egg whites with a hand mixer or a food processor until stiff, trickle in the sugar and keep whisking until the mixture is lovely and glossy.
- Spread the mixture over the cake and bake at 175 degrees for a further 15-25 minutes, until the meringue turns golden brown.
- Let the cake cool in the tin, then carefully remove it and place it on a cake plate.
Notes
The cake can also be made with other fruit such as currants or grapes.
With essential oils like lemon or orange you can vary the cake as you like and give the custard a new flavour. Use 1-2 drops of oil each time, depending on how intense you'd like the flavour to be.
Cooking with essential oils
In this recipe:Lemon OilVanilla OilWild Orange Oil
How to dose essential oils (toothpick method!), when to add them and what to look out for — it is all in the guide.
Have you made this recipe? Tag @oatoclock_blog on Instagram so we can see the result.
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