Rainy Day Rhubarb & Custard

Well, talk about a wet weekend! It was rainy or cloudy for most of Sunday and at the same time I was in a mildly hungover fug. These two facts combined meant that I had to spend the day eating my own weight in carbohydrates. It was fried eggs with toast and pancetta at brunch, and we had macaroni cheese for tea (is there any better hangover food than mac & cheese?). Around midday, my background headache like a pushy shopper elbowing their way to the front of the queue began forcing it's way to the foreground. I needed cake.

I found a bag of rhubarb at the bottom of the fridge that my Mother-In -Law had picked from her garden. Not quite enough for a crumble. So I googled 'rhubarb and custard cookies'. No luck. I did however find a recipe on the BBC Good Food Magazine website for a Rhubarb & Custard Cake. Boom! And off I went.

I posted a pic to Instagram and Facebook of the cake about to go into the oven and I've had loads of people asking me for the recipe. So here it is. It is incredible. I urge you to make it. It will make everything better.

Ingredients

400g rhubarb - trimmed and sliced into finger sized pieces
50g caster sugar
2 tbsps orange juice (my own addition)

250g soft unsalted butter
150g pot ready made custard (I used Ambrosia)
250g self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g golden caster sugar

First roast the rhubarb, by tossing in a roasting dish with the 50g sugar and orange juice. Cover with foil & roast for 15mins at 200 degrees (180 fan). Remove foil and roast for a further 5 minutes. Drain off and reserve juices while still warm. 

-Butter and line a 23cm springform cake tin. Preheat oven to 180C/ Fan 160C/ Gas 4.

Reserve 3 tbsp of the custard in a bowl. beat in the rest of the custard with the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs, vanilla and sugar until smooth and creamy.

Spoon one third of the cake batter into the tin, add a third of the rhubarb and repeat. Spoon over the remaining cake mix, scatter over your prettiest bits of rhubarb and dot the reserved custard over.

Bake for 40minutes until risen and golden, then cover with foil and bake for 15-20 minutes more or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the tin. 

I served this with some warm custard and some of the rhubarb juices drizzled over. But I had a plain slice yesterday with a cuppa and it was still beautifully moist and the perfect balance of sharp and sweet. I also have plans to slightly adapt the quantities and make it double layered - sandwiched with custardy cream and more rhubarb and drizzled with a rhubarb syrup icing. Wouldn't that be just gorgeous for a Summer celebration? This recipe was quite the find.

I told you it would make everything better - headache gone. And today the sun is back in the sky. Cake - curer of the World's ills.