EAT THIS NOW: RHUBARB
Tortes! Pavlovas! Pancakes! and more!
Good Morning!
First things first: many of you are new here (about 250 of you!!) so—hello! A warm welcome. A lot of you arrived this weekend via a generous Instagram post from Gwyneth Paltrow about my Green Shakshuka recipe, which has happened only once before and it is truly a thrill. I’m so happy to have you here.
To the rest of you, hello! I didn’t plan on giving you two baking posts in a row, but here we are, because it’s rhubarb season. Nobody puts rhubarb in the corner.
Rhubarb is one of my great loves, up there with watermelon, blackberries and cobblers of any kind. Because of all the things I dreamed, begged and hoped to grow in my backyard as a child (I buried the pit from literally every peach I ate, from 1989 onward)—rhubarb was the singular thing that grew. And grew it did, in a massive bunch that sprouted way up over my head. It’s still there.
Whether you get your rhubarb in your yard or your market, your CSA or a simple grocery run is not the point—the point here is that it’s fast and fleeting and now is the time.
I’m here to tell you about a spring/summer cake—or a torte—that you can make for the next several weeks with rhubarb, plus raspberries or strawberries—and then switch it out for any fruit you love from now until Thanksgiving (plums, apricots, blackberries, cherries, pears and even cranberries all work).
This is one of the first cakes I made consistently in my young and single days, a cake I discovered working in catering in the Meatpacking district after culinary school (we made lunch and the best pastries for fancy fashion shoots). It was after I’d spent a year working pastry at Cafe Boulud—and just before I flew to France to cook two meals a day as a villa’s private chef. It was before I really knew much about the food world (or what would become of my life) except that I loved a simple, fruit-filled cake.
I still do.
I make this type of cake more than any other—more than a layer cake or pavlova (though, I adore those—see below), more than cookies, more than pies or fancy tarts with delicate, crimped crusts. Because a torte forgives, and it also gives—amply, quietly.
Tortes are understated charmers.
Find the recipe, below, along with six more rhubarb-living links from my JOURNAL (where I wrote often before Substack), which leans fairly rhubarb heavy—owing again to the Rhubarb that grew in my childhood backyard, and the rhubarb that grows in the backyard where I’m raising my own kids, now. It’s that time.
xx
Sarah
[RECIPE, BELOW]
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EASY BERRY-RHUBARB TORTE
Adapted from the Lazy Chef’s Fruit Torte from The Newlywed Cookbook, by Sarah Copeland
SERVES 8 TO 10
1 CUP (2 STICKS) UNSALTED BUTTER, AT ROOM TEMPERATURE
1 1/2 CUP SUGAR
3 LARGE EGGS, AT ROOM TEMPERATURE
1-1/2 ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR OR GLUTEN-FREE ALL PURPOSE FLOUR
1-1/2 TSP BAKING POWDER
1 TEASPOON GROUND CINNAMON
1/4 TEASPOON FINE SEA SALT
TOPPING
1 TBSP SUGAR
2 TSP CINNAMON
1 CUP CHOPPED RHUBARB
1 CUP CHOPPED FRUIT SUCH AS STRAWBERRIES, BERRIES, CHERRIES, PLUMS, PEACHES, PEARS, OR A COMBINATION
1 CUP OF SLICED ALMONDS (OPTIONAL)
PREHEAT THE OVEN TO 375. BUTTER AND FLOUR 9-IN SPRINGFORM PAN.
BEAT TOGETHER THE BUTTER AND SUGAR UNTIL FLUFFY. ADD EGGS, ONE AT A TIME UNTIL THEY ARE FULLY COMBINED; STIR IN VANILLA.
WHISK TOGETHER THE FLOUR, BAKING POWDER AND SALT; ADD TO THE BUTTER MIXTURE, BEATING THOROUGHLY TO MAKE A SMOOTH, TIGHT BATTER. TRANSFER THE MIXTURE TO A SPRINGFORM PAN AND SMOOTH WITH AN OFFSET SPATULA.
MIX TOGETHER SUGAR AND CINNAMON. SCATTER THE FRUIT AND ALMONDS (IF USING) ON TOP OF BATTER, THEN SPRINKLE OVER THE CINNAMON SUGAR MIXER (THE FRUIT WILL SINK IN AS IT COOKS).
BAKE FOR 60 TO 70 MINUTES, UNTIL SPRINGY AND GOLDEN BROWN. LET THE CAKE COOL ON THE COUNTER UNTIL EASY TO HANDLE. REMOVE THE PAN SIDES AND SPRINKLE WITH CONFECTIONERS’ SUGAR, SERVE WARM OR AT ROOM TEMPERATURE WITH LOOSE WHIPPED CREAM, OR ICE CREAM.
FIVE MORE RHUBARB THINGS TO MAKE RIGHT NOW:
MODERN RHUBARB UPSIDE DOWN CAKE (my way)
COUNTRY RHUBARB UPSIDE DOWN CAKE (my mom’s way—the best!)
RHUBARB COMPOTE (see below)
HOW TO MAKE RHUBARB COMPOTE
If there is one rhubarb thing I make more than anything else, it’s a quick compote, for serving over pancakes and spooning warm over fresh ice cream. It’s an instant dessert, with a ton of the charm of the old-fashioned rhubarb upside down cake my mother always made us (above), but about half the work. Here’s how:
Cut four large stalks of rhubarb into 2-inch pieces, trimming any woody edges (about 4 heaping cups). Toss with 1/4 cup maple syrup, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 two-inch piece of lemon peel, a vanilla bean, a sprig of lemon verbena or lemon thyme (any will work— choose one).
Cook in a wide skillet on low heat until just starting to wilt and break down, adding a handful of frozen (pitted) sour or sweet cherries if you want to amp up the color (not all rhubarb is equally deep rosy red). Turn off the heat, toss and cover to wilt until the rhubarb softens but holds it’s shape, or continue cooking into a jam-like compote.
Serve warm, over ice cream. Store leftovers in sterile jars, well-sealed, in the fridge for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Spring and summer are the perfect time to dive into my breezy weeknight-to-weekend friendly book, Every Day is Saturday, full of the ingredients you’ll find in the market and at the CSA, and the flavors you want to serve to your people, now. Find it at my favorite indie book store, here:
Photos for this post by Dane Tashima (cake), Nico Shinco (pavlova), and Gentl + Hyers (pancakes). Food + prop styling by Sarah Copeland. Plates by Lost Quarry, Marité Acosta and vintage.
I don’t see how much vanilla to add in the rhubarb berry torte. 1 teaspoon? More?
Yum! Is the green shashuka recipe in one of your books ?