Spring...time for Rhubarb!

Rhubarb will soon be popping up everywhere and I thought this would be a perfect time to revisit some of my rhubarb recipes...just to get you ready and set to bake with this amazing and beautiful veggie/fruit!

The first is this delicious rhubarb mini tart experiment I made that uses a prebaked crust for less crust sogginess!

This shortcake was so so good!

Then the rhubarb and strawberry muffins with a streusel topping...one of two rhubarb muffin recipes.

What to do with leftover scones? Make a custardy, light yummy rhubarb bread pudding.

And to wash it all down...how about a cool refreshing rhubarb lemonade This lemonade is my favorite. It's a great combo of lemons and rhubarb with just the right amount of sweetness.

How about an unusual combo of tarragon and rhubarb from France's Food and Wine Magazine? Give these a try.

And last...how about a rhubarb cookie? Sounds a bit crazy, but they make a great sandwich cookie...kind of like a rhubarb whoopie pie!

So, there are some great rhubarb ideas to get you started...Happy Baking and Happy Spring!

Rhubarb Pie..an experiment

In addition to the crazy obsession I've had this Spring with rhubarb, I can add rhubarb pie to the list. Rhubarb pie crust, to be more specific!
I have been making mini fruit pies and larger strawberry rhubarb pies to sell at the farmer's market but with the larger pies, I can't really see how the crust comes out unless I cut into it, which is exactly what I do.
I absolutely hate soggy crust! To me, there's nothing better in a pie than to cut a piece and have the crust still firm with a slight crunch.
I have been selling slices, just so I can be sure the crust is fully cooked..crazy , right?
I am the first to admit I get a bit obsessed with all my baked goods. I do so much research and testing that I not only drive myself nuts..but I drive everyone who knows me a little crazy, too! (Yes, you know who you are!)
I can only imagine what crazy obsession the strawberry and blueberry season will bring me!
So I decided to conduct a little experiment this morning. I found a rhubarb pie recipe in my newest cookbook, purchased up at Brimfield. It's called " A Taste from the Past, Good Old Food". Remember, I'm the one who prefers older cookbooks to the ones found at your local Barnes and Noble or Borders today.
I didn't use the recipe for the crust from the book but I did use the filling recipe which was just for rhubarb, no strawberry used in it.
I made this crust two ways. I had it made, then frozen and then I made another and blind baked it.
To each I added the filling, then baked them together for the same length of time and the same temperature.
I wasn't confident that the prebaked crust wouldn't somehow burn, having been baked already but it came out great. I should have known I could trust this lady! The sides were a little darker than the one that had been frozen but the results came out that the prebaked crust held up much better to the juicy rhubarb filling without getting soggy! Yeah!
You can see from the photo below, the prebaked crust in the back is a little darker along the sides. But still holding up much better.

I like to make mini tart pies..is that the correct name for them?!
They just cook faster, more of an instant gratification thing, I guess!

This pie below is the unbaked crust. Compare the bottom crust to the photo below it, which is the prebaked crust. See how the crust isn't as firm?

I'm driving you crazy, too, aren't I?

Nice firm bottom crust below. That's what I want to see!

By the way, the crumble topping is the blueberry muffin streusel topping. It works for great for alot more than just blueberry muffins.

Although I used the filling recipe from this cookbook, I changed it a little. You'll notice that once you sprinkle sugar onto fruit, it draws out the liquid from the fruit.

So what I did was to sprinkle the sugar onto the rhubarb pieces, along with all the other ingredients, then let it sit in the bowl for about 15 to 20 minutes to draw out the liquid. Then I picked up the rhubarb pieces, being careful not to get much liquid that had fallen to the bottom, and placed the pieces into the pie crusts. This way, you avoid extra liquid which = less sogginess..or is that soggyness? Don't worry, rhubarb has so much extra liquid that it will still come out nice and juicy.

So, finally, here's the filling recipe exactly from the book. Just be sure to read all my crazy notes from my experiment, won't you?

Rhubarb Pie Filling

Makes enough for one 9" pie


2 pound of rhubarb

1 cup of sugar ( I always use less. Maybe cut down to 3/4 cup. It always seems there's too much sugar in rhubarb pie recipes. What's wrong with a little tartness?).
1/3 cup AP flour

1/3 cup orange juice

Remove any green leaves from the rhubarb. Cut rhubarb into 1/2" slices. Put into a large bowl. Sprinkle sugar and flour onto rhubarb pieces and stir. Pour in orange juice and stir to combine. Let rhubarb mixture sit to draw out the liquid. Pick up the pieces using your fingers or slotted spoon, leaving some of the liquid in the bowl and place filling into your crust. Proceed with the baking. Let me know who yours turns out!

Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcakes

I love shortcake. There are few things better than ripe, sweet and juicy strawberries, fresh whipped cream and a light delicate shortcake all piled together to make one great summer dessert! And, add some fresh rhubarb in the mix and it gets even better!
This recipe from the May 1992 issue of Gourmet Magazine is my contribution for Gourmetunbound.
I read many of the reviews and they ranged from loving the recipe to ..not. There are a few things that you have to remember when making shortcakes, biscuits or scones. And that is, all your ingredients have to be very cold and you can't overwork the dough or it will wind up heavy and dense.
The addition of cardamom was interesting and I liked the taste. It was subtle, not too overpowering and, of course, the orange zest makes everthing taste better.
One change I had to make was the amount of milk the recipe called for. It only said 1/4 cup which wasn't nearly enough. I needed to add probably another 1/4 cup worth ( I didn't measure how much more I was adding, I just kept pouring til I got the right consistency.)
The rhubarb/strawberry mixture was just the perfect sweetness for me.
And one last thing, the recipe calls for cutting the shortcakes into 6 sections but mine came out so huge that you could cut the sections smaller.( They do double in size once baked).

To make the cakes, whisk the dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

Blend in the zest, butter and veg. shortening and blend all the ingredients using your fingers til...

Til the mixture looks like this. It should resemble meal. You'll have some larger pieces of butter and some smaller and that's okay!

In a small bowl, whisk the wet ingredients.

And add the wet to the dry.
Stir this together with a fork..and here's the tricky part. Stir til just combined and stir gently, getting the dry dough on the bottom but don't overstir. I usually make figure 8's with the fork.( I know, a little weird!).

Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface. Use a bench scraper and your hand to form the dough into a shape, using flour as you need it...and you'll need it. But don't overdo it with the flour.

I made a square shape and cut into 6 pieces ( and I could have cut 12 pieces). The original recipe calls for forming a circle. It's up to you what shape you want.
Transfer the sections using the well floured bench scraper.

Once they're baked, they become quite large.

Prepare the rhubarb/strawberry topping by heating the rhubarb with sugar and orange juice in a pan. Cook on low heat about 5 minutes.

Then place the cooked rhubarb in a bowl with the sliced strawberries and mix gently.

Place in the fridge for about 1 hour to cool.

That's it..make your whipped cream and assemble all this yumminess..and enjoy a bit of summer!

Strawberry Rhubarb Shortcakes ( from Gourmet Magazine May 1992 issue)

Filling:

1 1/2 lbs. Rhubarb- trimmed and cut into 3/4" pieces ( about 4 cups)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tbsp. fresh orange juice

1 pint fresh strawberries

Shortcakes:

2 cups AP flour

3 tbsp. granulated sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tbsp. baking powder ( preferably aluminum free)

1 1/2 tsp. cardamom

1 1/2 tbsp. orange zest

1/2 stick cold, unsalted butter, cut into 1/2" pieces

2 tbsp. cold vegetable shortening

1/4 cup milk ( I needed about 1/2 cup)

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla

Whipped cream:

1 cup well chilled heavy cream

1 - 2 tbsp. sugar, or to taste

1/2 tsp. orange flower water or vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Make filling:

1. In heavy pan, combine rhubarb, sugar and orange juice. Simmer, stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes or til rhubarb is tender.

2. Transfer rhubarb to a medium bowl and stir in strawberries. Chill for about 1 hour.

Cakes:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, sugar, salt, baking powder and cardamom.

2. Using your fingers, blend in orange zest, butter and vegetable shortening til mixture resembles meal.

3. In a small bowl, whisk milk, egg and vanilla.

4. Add the wet to the dry ingredients.

5. Stir with a fork til the mixture just comes together to form a dough.( See my comments about this above).

6. Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and pat gently, using more flour for your hands.

7. Shape into a 6" round or a square and cut 6 sections ( or 12 as I mentioned) using a well floured bench scraper to form.

8. Scrape up the dough sections with the bench scraper and place on the baking sheet, spacing about 3" apart.
9. Bake 12 to 15 minutes or til golden.

Whipped cream:

Beat cream til soft peaks form. Add sugar and beat in orange flower water or vanilla and continue beating til stiff peaks form.
Split cakes in half and spoon on filling and then whipped cream on top.

Rhubarb Cake..or Muffins

A few mornings ago, while perusing the internet and checking my usual favorite blogs, I saw that this one had a rhubarb cake recipe that I just had to try. It looked wonderful, certainly light and fluffy! Anything this lady makes must be wonderful, so how could I miss?
So I set out to find some fresh rhubarb..because I didn't want to use frozen rhubarb again..and I found some!
I also bought some more strawberries, thinking I wanted to use them together with the rhubarb.
Now I had just made a rhubarb tarragon muffin recipe but I wanted to try another and I thought this would be a good attempt.
So first I made the rhubarb cake exactly as the original. It was delicious, light and moist.


And then I made the recipe again, turning the batter into muffins, using a little more rhubarb for the topping with some cut up strawberries. I thought a streusel topping would make it more interesting, so I used the topping I make for my blueberry buttermilk muffins and they were just great!

I did place the cut up rhubarb into a bowl with a little bit of sugar. I just felt the rhubarb would be too tart on it's own. Now that I've tasted the end result, I didn't think this step is necessary. Even if your rhubarb is tart(which most is), the tartness would give it a nice "bite" since there's enough sugar to balance it.

Once you spoon the batter into the muffin cups, top with some cut up strawberries and rhubarb.

Then cover the berries with some streusel topping and sprinkle with some cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins with Streusel Topping ( adapted from Gesine's "Confectionsofamasterbaker" blog)

2 1/2 cups diced rhubarb, divided

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temp.

1 egg, room temp.

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups AP flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup buttermilk

Approx. 8 to 10 fresh strawberries, cut into small pieces.

Streusel topping :Recipe follows.

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin cups with paper liners or butter the cups and cut circles from parchment paper to fit on bottom of muffin cups (which is what I did, yup..really!).

1. Cream the sugar with the butter til light and fluffy. This needs to be creamed for at least 5 minutes. It must be light and fluffy! Stop and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as it creams.

2. Add the egg and mix til completely incorporated, scraping down sides and bottom of bowl.

3. Add the vanilla and mix til blended.

4. In a small mixing bowl, combine the flour with the baking soda and salt.

5. Add the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk to the butter/sugar/egg mixture.

6. Fold in the 2 cups of diced rhubarb.

7. Spoon batter into muffin cups, sprinkle some cut up strawberry pieces and some remaining diced rhubarb on top. Then sprinkle with streusel topping and press down lightly. The sprinkle with cinnamon/sugar mixture.

8. Bake approx. 20 to 25 minutes. Insert a toothpick into center of a muffin to check for doneness.

** Note: I found that the cake and the muffin texture improved after allowing it to sit a few hours. (By this I mean, the "gumminess" that sometimes comes from, I believe, using fresh fruit in batter was more apparent when cutting a piece or eating a piece right away, rather than letting it sit and completely cool.) Sorry..hope this last remark wasn't too confusing!

Streusel Topping ( Makes enough for 12 muffins).

6 to 7 tablespoons of unsalted butter

1 cup AP flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1. In microwave, melt butter and cool.

2. Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl and add the melted butter. Stir with a fork til all is blended and mixture begins to form crumbs. Gently squeeze the mixture to form larger clumps, then break them apart. Let streusel sit about 15 minutes before using.

Mini Rhubarb Tarragon Muffins

This recipe came out of a French Food and Wine Magazine that one of the Farmer's Market vendors, Bea, gave me to "read". Bea is a wonderful lady who sells honey, among other items, along with her husband Jean-Claude. She is originally from Paris and has been here for 12 years. I looked at all the pictures in the magazine since I only took high school French and I could only make out a few words on my own! I found this one to try, although there were tons of other recipes that looked great.

So with Bea's help, we translated the recipe into English and I converted the grams into cups and this is the result. They came out great, nice and moist. The rhubarb and tarragon is spooned on top with some granulated sugar so when you take a bite, you get all those flavors, plus a little taste of cinnamon. I could have used more tarragon because the flavor wasn't too noticable but I only had a little bit just coming up in my garden. The recipe yielded 8 muffins.

One last thing, I had some rhubarb left in the freezer from these so I used that and it came out fine.

Mini Rhubarb Tarragon Muffins

2 stalks of rhubarb ( I used frozen)
2 sprigs of tarragon
1/2 cup plus 4 tbsp. sugar
1 stick plus 1 tbsp. butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs
1 cup AP flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tins with paper cups.
1. Place flour, baking powder and cinnamon in a small bowl and stir to combine. Set aside.
2. Cut rhubarb into small pieces.
3. Place rhubarb, tarragon and 2 tbsp. sugar into a small saucepan, cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
4. Beat eggs ( I whisked them), in a medium bowl with 1/2 cup sugar.
5. Whisk in melted and cooled butter.
6. Add dry ingredients and stir just to combine.
7. Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups.
8. Spoon the rhubarb/tarragon mixture onto the batter and sprinkle the remaining 2 tbsp. sugar on top.
9. Bake approx. 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Just a bit more Rhubarb...Cookies and Rhubarb Lemonade

Well I tried to freeze the rhubarb, really I did, but I just couldn't stop myself from testing out 2 more recipes using this colorful amazing vegetable. It's almost as if I personally discovered rhubarb all by myself and I need to see how many ways I can create with it !

So in my last post I kiddingly mentioned rhubarb cookies but, turns out, there are several recipes I found for them. After checking out this site http://www.savor-the-rhubarb.com/rhubarb-cookies.html I baked the Rhubarb Cookies with Orange. These really were delicious cookies. I made one change, however. I added 1/4 tsp. of ground ginger. After reading a lot of rhubarb recipes I noticed many of them called for ginger so I decided to use a little bit and I think it added a nice extra spice flavor. Also, when I make these again, I would use 2 cups of chopped rhubarb rather than 1 1/2 cups. I felt it just needed a bit more. The cookies come out soft, kind of cake like and because of this, they would make terrific sandwich cookies, kind of like whoopie pie like...OMG.. whoopie pie rhubarb cookies !! Somebody stop me!!

The next rhubarb recipe I made (from the same web site), was Rhubarb Lemonade. Okay, this drink is so good!!! You have to make it...you just do!! Because my rhubarb was so fresh, the amount of sugar called for in the recipe was a little too much. I would cut down the sugar if your rhubarb is growing in your garden and nice and tender like mine was.

Well, there you have it! All my rhubarb is gone and I need to move on! I've been gathering blueberries everywhere and freezing them. Between picking them myself and buying them at the farmers markets, I have quite a stash. Stay tuned for something blue...berry that is!

Rhubarb Bread Pudding

Topped with a dollop of sour cream sweetened with sugar or honey.

Cranberry Orange scones with golden raisins cut up instead of bread.



Look at those beautiful colors !!


Before baking.

It has a nice crunchy top and with velvety pudding below !

Ok, I admit it...I lied ...well, just a little bit!! I couldn't resist making something rhubarb this morning so the first recipe I made was this wonderful rhubarb bread pudding. I have perused the internet for so many rhubarb recipes between last night and this morning my head is all in a tizzy!! and I can't remember where I originally saw this recipe but let me just tell you...you have to make it. It's that good!! I did make a few changes, can't just leave anything alone! As I don't usually have bread in the house, I dug into the freezer and found 3 cranberry orange scones and decided that using these would just make it so much better ( it did !). I also used 1/2 cup of half and half for part of the 1 1/2 cups of milk it calls for. I suggest adding 1/2 cup more rhubarb. It needed it once I tasted it. I also added 1/2 tsp. ground ginger as many of the recipes I read used ginger with the rhubarb so it seemed a good spice to add. With every bite you get the tart flavor of the rhubarb with the not too sweet pudding and it's just heaven ! I suggest you try this one...it's really so good. Now, on to the rhubarb cookies. I actually found a recipe for them !! More on that later. Enjoy!!

Rhubarb Bread Pudding

1 1/2 cups milk ( I used 1 cup whole milk and 1/2 cup half & half)

2 eggs - beaten

4 slices of toast - cubed ( I used 3 large scones )

1 1/2 cups rhubarb - sliced 1/2" thick

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground ginger ( my addition )

In a large mixing bowl, mix eggs and milk. Add toast ( scones ) , rhubarb, sugar and spices. Pour into a buttered casserole dish. Mine was approx. 6" x 10" dish. Bake for 1 hour @ 350. Let cool about one hour to be room temp. or refridgerate if you like it cold. A dollop of sour cream sweetened with sugar or honey or ice cream would be just fine !

Rhubarb still available...Yeah!!

I am embarrassed to admit that I have never made, and barely ever eaten, rhubarb...yes, it's true. I seem to recall a rhubarb pie my brother brought over to us one summer holiday. It was from some obscure bakery and I remember it as being overly sweet and the rhubarb was mushy. Well, as promised my "neighbor" (at the Saucon Valley Farmer's Market in Hellertown) Happy Farm http://agmap.psu.edu/Businesses/2564 from Kitnersville gave me some beautiful, fresh, just picked straight from the garden this afternoon... rhubarb! Can't get any fresher than that. According to Mary, farmers don't bring it to market once summer begins but it's still very much growing in the gardens and available. Guess the farmers are just too busy harvesting other crops for market...I don't know.. but I have it and I'm going to make something. Just not sure what!

So, I looked up some info on it and for now, decided to freeze it.Well maybe most of it. It's supposed to freeze very well. Of course, I'm thinking cookies but rhubarb cookies..hmm.. not really liking the idea but, stay tuned and we'll see what I can come up with. A great site to check out for all things rhubarb is Savor the Rhubarb I've still got that patty pan squash from yesterday to tackle! Hmm.. thinking patty pan squash cookies...Just kidding!! (Thanks Mary and Jean!)