Cooking for Pleasure: Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

Easy-to-prepare cake that can be eaten warm with ice cream, whipped cream, or eaten cold

Butter and rhubarb mixed. (Photo by Patty Schied)

By Patty Schied

A few days ago, a friend of mine brought me a piece of her upside-down rhubarb cake. Despite having lived in Juneau for decades, I have never cooked with rhubarb. But after tasting this delicious dessert, I asked her for the recipe. Since I don’t grow rhubarb, my sister kindly gave me hers from her garden. 

This is an easy-to-prepare cake that can be eaten warm with ice cream, whipped cream, or eaten cold. It keeps in the refrigerator for several days, assuming you can resist it that long.

Rhubarb pre-sliced. (Photo by Patty Schied)

Probably the only difficult preparation is obtaining the rhubarb and then cutting four cups of it into dice. The cake part is easy to make and is rich and delicious.

First make the topping. (Don’t use any of the leaves; they are poisonous.)

Ingredients:

• ¼ cup of butter

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 4 cups of rhubarb, cut up into 1/2 inch dice (you can reduce this amount to two cups if you have difficulty obtaining the full amount)

• Combine the butter and all the brown sugar into a medium saucepan. Cook slowly until thick and smooth. Remove from heat and add cut-up rhubarb. Stir until mixed and set aside.

• Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Diced rhubarb. (Photo by Patty Schied)

Brown sugar and butter. (Photo by Patty Schied)

Make the cake batter with these ingredients:

• ¼ cup of butter at room temperature

• ¾ cup of granulated sugar

• 1 egg, slightly beaten

• 1 ½ cups of all purpose flour

• 3 teaspoons of baking powder

• ½ teaspoon salt

• ½ cup milk

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cake batter on rhubarb. (Photo by Patty Schied)

Directions:

Cream butter and white sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add egg and mix thoroughly. Mix flour, baking powder and salt together.

Alternate adding flour and milk in three parts. The idea is to gradually add these two ingredients.

Add vanilla extract and stir to blend.

Pour rhubarb topping into a lightly buttered 8 x 8 cake pan and spread evenly. Pour cake batter over rhubarb topping and spread lightly over it. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

Remove from oven and let rest for five to 10 minutes before inverting over a cake plate. Serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream if desired.

• Patty Schied is a longtime Juneau resident who studied at the Cordon Bleu in London and has written a cookbook. Cooking For Pleasure appears every other week in the Juneau Independent's features. She welcomes questions about her column at patschied@yahoo.com.

Baked cake on platter. (Photo by Patty Schied)