It’s impossible for me to go near a greengrocer shop without coming out with bags of fruit and vegetables. Shoes used to be my weakness, and in fact still are, but to a lesser extent, because nowadays I am obsessed with food and ingredients. A beautiful bottle of truffled oil holds the same allure as the most stunning and sparkly heels. I just can’t help but want them. It’s the same with fruit and vegetables. Last week it was the beautiful and interesting finger limes I spotted at my favourite grocer. I didn’t have a plan for them, I just knew I wanted them and would find a use for them when I got home. And find a use for them I did with the beautiful, and delicious Mojito Cheesecake Parfaits I made last week. Along with bunches of herbs, plump ripe tomatoes, rhubarb was another ingredient I found impossible to walk past. I justified it to myself that my Mum loves rhubarb and I would make a rhubarb cake while she stayed with us last week, which I then promptly forgot about.
So I finally made the cake I had originally planned to make while my parents visited – a rhubarb bundt cake. I don’t know what it is about bundt cakes that makes a cake seem that much more special. I’m sure it’s due to the beautiful shape they get from being baked in a bundt pan, which makes them just look so pretty. And it gets even prettier, I think, glazed, with the glaze drizzling down from their peaks. It reminds me of a mountain range capped with snow.
I have to admit that the final cake wasn’t quite rhubarby enough for me, so I’ve doubled the rhubarb quantity in the recipe below.
Tell me, do you visit a grocer only to come home with bags full of ingredients that weren’t on your list?
Rhubarb Bundt Cake with Rhubarb Icing
Ingredients
- 300 g of rhubarb chopped
- 125 ml of water
- 100 g of sugar
- 150 g of butter softened
- 220 g of caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup of thick Greek yoghurt
- 300 g of self raising flour sifted
- RHUBARB GLAZE
- 2 cups of icing sugar
- reserved rhubarb syrup
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees Celsius (320 Fahrenheit) and lightly grease and flour a 24cm bundt tin.
- Place the sugar and water in a small saucepan over a low heat and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the rhubarb and increase the heat to medium and once the mixture comes to a boil reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly and pass the mixture through a fine mesh sieve and reserve the solids for the cake and set aside the syrup for the glaze.
- Combine the butter, sugar and vanilla extract in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat until pale and creamy.
- Add the eggs to the mixture, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Add the rhubarb and mix until well combined before adding the yoghurt. Finally switch the mixer to it’s lowest speed and add the flour and mix until just combined.
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared bundt tin and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until tested with a skewer.
- To make the glaze by combine the icing sugar and the rhubarb syrup until you have a slightly runny consistency. Drizzle over the cake.
