Rhubarb Tatin Cake
The love of the French for “tatins” no longer needs to be proven. These classic French upside-down cakes or pies are traditionally made with apples, but you can embrace the season by using other fruits: peach, blueberry or pineapple, or vegetables: endives, carrots or tomatoes. This simple Rhubarb Tatin Cake embraces the late-spring/early summer season and offers a great way to showcase this perennial vegetable (yes, rhubarb is a vegetable!). The cake is simple and light, with small hints of vanilla and lemon, subtle enough to let the rhubarb shine…
- Prep time
- 1 hr 30 min
- Cook time
- 40 min
- Yield
- 9 servings
- Difficulty
- MEDIUM
Ingredients
Quantities are shown as originally provided.
- For the Rhubarb Topping:
- 350 g fresh rhubarb
- 1 cup caster sugar
- Juice of ½ lemon
- 1 vanilla bean, seeds removed and reserved.
- For the Cake:
- The seeds of the vanilla bean
- ½ teaspoon lemon zest
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter , softened
- 1/3 cup each granulated sugar and packed brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup milk
Instructions
- 1
For the rhubarb:
- 2
Cut off the ends of your rhubarb. Cut the rhubarb into 2 ½ inch-long batons.
- 3
Put the vanilla pod, sugar, lemon juice and 300ml water (just to cover the rhubarb) in a shallow pot and set over low heat. Once the sugar has dissolved, add the rhubarb batons and simmer for 5 mins. Remove from the heat and leave to cool in the syrup for 1 hour, at least, or up to a night. Note: This step is very important- if your rhubarb doesn’t sit long enough in the syrup, it will be too sour. The rhubarb batons should be perfectly sweet and tender, but will still hold their shape.
- 4
For the Cake:
- 5
Pre-heat your oven to 350°F . Grease an 8-inch square cake pan and line bottom with parchment paper.
- 6
Arrange the rhubarb batons horizontally and vertically in the bottom of the pan, to create a grid of 9 alternating squares of 6 or 7 strips each. Set aside.
- 7
In a large bowl, beat the butter with granulated sugar and brown sugar until white and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, the sour cream, vanilla seeds and lemon zest.
- 8
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, alternately with milk ( making 2 additions of flour mixture and 1 of milk).
- 9
Scrape the batter over the rhubarb batons, smoothing the batter to the edges of the pan, if needed.
- 10
Bake in the oven until a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean, about 40 minutes.
- 11
Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Invert onto serving plate, and peel off the parchment paper very carefully. Let cool completely.