Finally it is Rhubarb Season! The first of the Irish stuff is out and about at Organic Farmer’s Markets now, get it while it is ruby pink and fabulous! My nana grew rhubarb in her garden, her rhubarb patch with it’s big deep green leaves seemed like the perfect hiding place for faeries. My sister now has a rhubarb patch, turns out it is a perfect hiding place for kittens too! I haven’t quite figured out how to grow rhubarb in my flat so I depend on organic farmers for mine 🙂

I like crumble-ness, rhubarb and orange-ness and who doesn’t like cake? Seems like a great combo. The mix of textures and sweet and tart flavours worked out great- if I don’t say so myself. So I decided to share!

Seasonal Rhubarb & Orange Crumble Cake

Rhubarb & Orange

• Six stalks of rhubarb, topped and tailed and cut to 1cm/ half inch pieces
• A third of VERY thinly sliced of a ripe pear
• Zest of half a large organic unwaxed orange
• Juice of half a large orange
• Optional:Zest of half a lime
• Two scant dessertspoons of xylitol
• Half a teaspoon of organic vanilla powder/ 1 pod / one tsp of extract

Put it all in a bowl and mix it all together. Leave to macerate while you prepare the rest of the yumminess!

Crumble layer

• One generous spoon of raw organic coconut oil- melted
• A third of a cup of rapadura / sucucant / cocount blossom sugar
• A third of a cup of ground almonds
• Three dessertspoons of chopped walnuts
• One teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• Less than an eighth of a teaspoon of himalayan pink salt / sea salt

Add your sugar of choice to your melted coconut oil and mix. I use real sugar in the crumble because it caramelises. I mix my salt and cinnamon into the ground almonds and then add these. Finally mix in the walnuts. Leave the bowl to one side while you prepare the cake.

Cake! Hmmm Cake!

• Three and a half dessertspoons of coconut oil melted
• A quarter cup of xylitol
• A cup of room temperature unsweetened apple puree
• A quarter cup of hot water- this to be added just before combining the wet and dry ingredients
• A third of a cup of buckwheat flour
• Two thirds of a cup of fine maize meal
• A half a cup of ground almonds
• Half a teaspoon of vanilla powder/ one pod/ one tsp of extract
• An eighth of a tsp of himalayan pink salt or sea salt
• One teaspoon of aluminium free baking powder
• Half a teaspoon of aluminium free baking soda
• One teaspoon of cornflour

Method:

Pre heat your oven to 170C / 330F fan or 180C / 350F normal. And prepare a 20cm/ 7.5inc cake tin, a springform one might be nice! You will need some foil or baking paper to cover the cake half way through baking.

This is a many bowled affair, you will need four! I used heat proof ones for the crumbly bit and the wet ingredients for the cake as I popped them in the pre-heating oven to melt the coconut oil first.

For the wet ingredients mix your xyitol into the coconut oil. Add in the room temperature apple puree. This is important, as if the apple puree is cold the coconut oil will re-solidfy. I forgot to take mine out of the fridge so I melted the coconut oil and apple puree together. Boil the kettle so you have the quarter cup of hot water ready for later!

Next sieve the buckwheat flour, baking powder, baking soda and cornflour into a bowl. Add in the salt, maize meal, ground almonds and vanilla. Stir everything together, pressing out any lumps of ground almonds.

The fast bit!

Grab your wet ingredients and add in the quarter cup of hot water. Give it a quick stir and with haste pour the mixture into the dry stuff. Fold the ingredients together to make your cake batter. Once combined- just so there is no streaks of dry. Over mixing is not good for the texture of the cake.

With a high pitched “Now” grab your well rested rhubarb and quite speedily spoon the mixture over the top- try not to include too much of the liquid, don’t worry about it being on the spoon but leave what is left over in the bowl.

With a sharply said “Next!” pick up your crumble and spoon this on top of your rhubarb evenly. Make sure the rhubarb is hidden so it doesn’t burn.

Put it into the middle of your oven- or with mine slightly to the right because the left side is hotter. Sigh.

I get to bowl washing at this stage 🙂 After twenty five minutes cover your Rhubarb & Orange Crumble cake with foil or baking paper. This will stop the top from burning.

I was a little nervous about cooking the rhubarb on the cake! I therefor peeked a lot and actually left it in the oven a little long. I baked mine for 1hr 10mins- in a fan oven! Eek I am lucky it wasn’t charcoal – so I am saying 55mins – 60mins, it is a wet batter and the water from the rhubarb cooking makes it wetter so it does take that long. But it makes for a lovely moist cake, I also find using coconut oil gives it a lovely bouncy texture!

Leave to cake to cool for at least twenty minutes before removing from the tin. This gives the cake a chance to settle down and firm up! Hope you try it out ! Xs Aissa