Old Fashioned Sticky Rhubarb Cake.
3 oz butter
3 oz caster sugar
2 eggs
3 oz SR flour
a little milk
1 lb rhubarb
2 tablesp demerara
Topping
2 oz butter
3 oz plain flour
1 oz caster sugar
Heat oven to 190C
Grease and line 8" round cake tin
Cream together butter and sugar, beat in eggs and fold in flour
Add a little milk to give a dropping consistency
Slice rhubarb into half inch pieces and toss with 1 tbsp demerara.
Make topping by rubbing butter into flour and adding sugar.
Turn the mix into the tin, arrange the rhubarb on top, scatter the second tbsp demerara over, then sprinkle on the topping..
Bake for 45 mins or till the cake seems firm on top.
I serve it with Greek style yoghurt. You could also do it with apples.
We took a walk near the edge of the Wolds yesterday and found a really good little pub for lunch. We walked around the village then ventured out to follow a finger post around a large playground area then on into farmland. Someone backing onto a bit of rough ground near the recreation area had put in a back gate and sectioned off some land with Heras fencing to make a run for 6 Warrens and the most gorgeous proud cockerel! We enjoyed watching them for a while.
This plant is fumitory and we often find it on sandy soils on The Wolds.
We came back into the village along a lane where one of the cottages had this for a side gate. It's made of cog wheels of various sorts. It's a beauty isn't it?
This is how the pod from pea number 24 turned out. It got darker as it grew. There are 2 to the node on most of these pea plants and this has a sibling which is now almost as dark. (Sorry about the intrusive wrinkly fingers on these shots but it's the best way to ensure my little camera focuses on the pea, not the back-ground!)
I love the way all these peas have flowers on quite long stalks so that they look like sweet peas. The next step in this project is waiting to see what pod type they have, and eventually to try some of them before deciding which lines I want to pursue - or whether I decide to sow the rest of these F2s for next year.
I have the great advantage in pea breeding, of having Rebsie Fairholm (Daughter of the Soil) a few years ahead of me in experience. When I muse aloud on here I often get a helpful answer from Rebsie. It's like having your own very generous mentor! Long live Blogging!
16 comments:
It will be exciting when it comes to trying the peas. The rhubarb cake looks delicious. My rhubarb is only in it's second year so no glut yet, but maybe next year. I love the gate. I'm sure it must be one of a kind.
A glut of rhubarb? A plantation wouldn't be enough for us!
Fond of rhubarb as I am, we have a couple of large mature plants at home and then inherited 2 more on the allotment. We can't keep up - and there's only so much rhubarb crumble you can eat!
My rhubarb is not doing as well this year and I am avoiding using it to give it a chance to rebound. I may have a pest infestation and need to do a closer inspection of the plant leaves and roots.
That cog wheel gate is inspired! Simply beautiful.
Want that gate!!!
Glad the pea breeding is going well
...or so much rhubarb wine that you can drink?
Love the sound of the cake - will be giving it a whirl, thank you!
I made a rhubarb and orange meringue tart - several times - the first attempt was from a recipe which I think must have missed out some stages and ingredients. I adapted this but haven't quite got it right yet - although my husband enjoyed it!!
You're very welcome - I'm glad if my comments are helpful.
Isn't that pod a beauty? Looks very like Lancashire Lad.
I absolutely love that gate. Someone has put so much work into that!
The rhubarb cake looks yummy and I will have to try it - even though it will mean a trip to the supermarket to buy some rhubarb.
The gate is great fun, I love it.
The pod is like Lancashire Lad Rebsie, but the plant has the look of Mumsie - it has the smaller stature of Oregon Sugar Pod.
Interestingly (to me) the purple flowered, green podded peas are producing 9 peas to the pod (you can see through the green ones at the flat stage - you can't with the purple or bicoloured pods.) That's more than I've had with some modern commercial peas.
Listen, I'm impressed, but I don't claim to understand. Oregon Sugar Pod, I understand. Rhubarb, I understand. Saving my beans and collecting parsnip seeds I understand. Beyond that it's all a grey haze. Gregor, where are you when I need you???
ps What's your rhubarb variety?
The cake looks good, I think I will give it a go. Love that gate too!
Hi and welcome, Mal's Allotment.
My rhubarb is Stockbridge Arrow. Not the earliest but I get whopping big, fat, long sticks from it. I don't know what the one is on the allotment but it comes up earlier than Stockbridge so it gives me a few weeks' worth of rhubarb at the start of the season.
The beauty of amateur vegetable breeding is that as long as you know what to pollinate with what, you don't need to understand. The people who produced the early varieties didn't know what the science was behind what they were doing. If you do, it's probablty easier and quicker to get something you're looking for. But you'll still get varieties no-one's eaten before which is a real buzz!
I can recommend the cake Dan!
Gimme Rhubarb Cake NOW and nobody gets hurt!
I'd love to Richard, but it's all gone!
i'll definitely be giving that rhubarb cake a go - looks awesome!
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