Recipe updated February 2013; a few fixes for a better cake pudding.
Rhubarb rocks and rules in my garden and kitchen. As spring’s first crop, the cheeky stalks burst forth like delicious red exclamation points begging to be plucked. I happily oblige.
Ready for its bath, uh, water bath I should say.
Seasonally sublime: Fresh is best
I’m always on the lookout for great seasonal recipes for my garden harvests. Rhubarb is a particular favorite because the recipes are usually homespun, easy and delicious. The fruit choice of church socials and neighborhood potlucks, a rhubarb dessert is just as American as any apple pie. (Bring on the John Philip Sousa!)
Rhubarb Berry Cake Pudding from the Great State of Washington (blueberries added for good measure)
The New York Times Heritage Cook Book (a great garage sale find ) features this (adapted) recipe from my home state. Part pudding, part cake, it’s all delicious, especially if you like a little goo factor in your sweets.
Rhubarb Berry Cake Pudding
Print recipe
| Serves | 4-6 |
| Prep time | 15 minutes |
| Cook time | 45 minutes |
| Total time | 1 hour |
| Meal type | Dessert |
Ingredients
- 2 cups Sugar
- 1/4 cup Flour
- 2 tablespoons melted butter
- 2 cups milk
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 4 eggs (separated)
- 1 cup rhubarb
- 1 cup berries (your favorite type)
Directions
| Step 1 | |
| Preheat oven 325 degrees. Bowl 1: Combine 1.5 C sugar with flour | |
| Step 2 | |
| Bowl 2: Mix together butter, milk, and salt | |
| Step 3 | |
| Combine bowl 1 and bowl 2 | |
| Step 4 | |
| Toss rhubarb and berries with 1/2 Cup sugar. Add rhubarb and berries to lightly beaten egg yolks and then add all to combined bowl mixture, and incorporate gently | |
| Step 5 | |
| Whip egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold egg whites into combined bowl mixture and pour into greased shallow baking dish (or individual cups). Sprinkle with sugar | |
| Step 6 | |
| Set pan in a larger water bath pan, and bake for 45 minutes. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream (or Creme Anglaise if you fancy something fancy). | |
I love to play with my food.
Need I say more? Enjoy!
Tom this qualifies as Food Porn! Will vendors have rhubarb at the Farmer’s Market? It would be nice to print out recipes and make the ingredients available. eggs- Plum Creek, milk & butter-Seabreeze Farm, rhubarb (Tom’s?)
OMG! Tom you are so talented. Lovely!
I’m getting in the car and driving down this little mountain into town for the ingredients for this delicious pudding cake as soon as I click the “submit” button! 😉 Thanks for sharing the recipe… Nice pics!
Oh, Tom, you are having such fun with rhubarb! Love all the pics, especially the T.C. one. 😉
Shirley
Tom, this looks incredible, I love rhubarb and custard can’t wait to try it.
Beautiful rhubarb – and a gluten free dessert – bless your heart! I have rhubarb in the fridge right now…I know what we are having for dessert tonight, thanks for sharing Tom 🙂
Boy, you sure know how to hurt a girl. Delicious looking “pud” Tom. Now I just have to find the rhubarb.
Goo… short for GOOD!!!!
Oh I wish our rhubarb would go red, but it stays resolutely green. But, delicious all the same.
I HOPE you didn’t waste this gorgeousness on the person who gave you the cleaning products??
I could taste it as I was looking at the pic; enough said, I will get some rhubarb next time!
Corrrr! Now that’s a pudding Tom, no wonder its a fave of yours huh 🙂
WOW.
LOVE Goo Factors. But only in Sweets.
“Rhubarb rules?” That’s so true.
I’m just realizing now that that pic in the first column of your blog is you holding a huge bunch of rhubarb. Duh.
I love gooy fruity desserts and this is one that I would try for sure. I’m trying to convince Hegui to plant rhubarb in his community garden plot but thus far no luck. Is it true that the leaves are poisionous?
Hi Stevie, yes the leaves are poisonous, so I stick the stalks. 😉
I might have to break down and buy rhubarb. This looks fantastic.
This recipe has been saved into my “recipes to try” for when my rhubarb grows back after I used it all up for my last cake.
This recipe looked delicious, but my attempt at it has turned out to be more rhubarb strawberry soup than cake/pudding. Is there something missing in the recipe? I went over it several times and can’t see where I went wrong. 🙁 I love your site though, avid reader, thanks!
“Hi Lya, let me find the recipe in from my original book and make sure, I included everything — yikes! Thanks for letting me know.
I put it back in the oven for an addtl 45 mins, and it firmed up a bit, but was still pretty runny. Maybe because I baked it in one shallow baking dish rather than ramekins? I could tell it would have been delicious if it hadn’t so stubbornly refused to firm up – I still ate 2 bowls. 🙂
Lya, you could firm it up by adding a couple tablespoons of flour to the cornstarch and adding one more egg. Give that a try. I may alter the recipe so you don’t have to mess with the water bath and can just bake it like a custard. I’ll play with it and let you know.
Just came across this recipe on facebook and thought I’d have a go. Can I just check the quantities. I’m guessing it’s 1/4 teaspoon of salt, but is the melted butter 2 teaspoons or 2 tablespoons? Great website, there are loads of recipes I like the look of 🙂
Janet let me go back to my original scribbles and check it out and I’ll update within the next half hour. Tom
Hi Janet, I went back and added the new version of this, one that was spelled out better and one where I went back to the original ingredients, like flour instead of cornstarch. It just works better. The New recipe is now in place. Thanks for checking in and helping me out to improve it.
rhubarb leaves are poisonous…do not feed it to your chickens or goats…
Hi Deana, good point. Here’s a info sheet about the toxicity of the leaves: http://museum.gov.ns.ca/poison/?section=species&id=112
Below the very first photo at the top it says “gluten free” but it’s not. Following through the comments I’m guessing – the original recipe used cornstarch for thickening, when you modified it the flour appeared? So if I made it with cornstarch instead of flour it’d be gluten free, but maybe not so thick?
Hi Betty, thanks for catching that. You’re right I tried it with cornstarch and it was a bit runny, so I modified it with flour. I will remove that line that says it’s gluten free. Maybe almond flour would work?
I’ll try it with one of my glutenless flours and let you know. Looks like the rhubarb is only a few weeks from being ready to use-I should probably stop hovering over it.