Home Recipes Heritage Recipe: Rhubarb Berry Cake Pudding

Heritage Recipe: Rhubarb Berry Cake Pudding

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Heritage Recipe: Rhubarb Berry Cake Pudding
berry cake pudding
Rhubarb berry cake pudding: gooey goodness by the spoonful

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.

berry cake pudding ready to be bakedReady 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

Serves 4-6
Prep time 15 minutes
Cook time 45 minutes
Total time 1 hour
Meal type Dessert
Rhubarb Berry Cake Pudding is a wonderfully gooey, cakey treat. The dessert gives you a little sweetness and a little pucker, and a whole serving of doughy goodness.

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).

Rhubarb letters TCI love to play with my food.

Fresh Rhubarb Rules Need I say more? Enjoy!

28 COMMENTS

  1. 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?)

  2. 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!

  3. 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 🙂

  4. 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??

  5. “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?

  6. 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.

  7. 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.

  8. 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 🙂

      • 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.

  9. 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?

  10. 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.

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