Rhubarb Crumble Cake - a taste of spring

Soft Victoria Sponge, topped with juicy rhubarb pieces and sugary crumble.

Rhubarb Crumble Cake

The first fresh rhubarb is now coming up in the allotment. Wonderful sour juicy stalks, just begging to be used in crumbles, cakes, compotes and pies. The Germans have a recipe “streusel kuechen” which is similar to our crumble, and slightly more transportable to take to my Seniors Lunch Club group.  The sourness of the rhubarb contrasts beautifully with the vanilla flavoured classic Victoria sponge.

The cake has a slightly puddingy texture due to the juice seeping into it, and you need to cook it on a metal tray in case any juice comes out of the bottom of your baking tin.

This week’s theme with my Senior’s Group was Space. I must admit, my choice, and not one that greatly inspired the group. Most, but not all, remembered the moon landings, and most have seen recent news clips about the current Mars landings – although were not convinced about the relevance to their own lives. I had to run round the table (on which a vase of flowers was representing the Sun) with a coffee cup (the Earth) showing how the rotation of our planet brings about night and day in Manchester. Exhausting, and I needed the cake to restore my energy.
 
Makes 16 portions                           Timings:  90 minutes

For the crumble:

• 160g plain flour
  
• 80g butter
  
• 80g brown sugar

For the cake:

• 200g butter
  
• 200g caster sugar
  
• One sachet of vanilla sugar (about 5g) or a teaspoon of vanilla essence.
  
• 4 eggs
  
• 200g self raising flour, sieved
  
• 500g rhubarb stalks – which gives you about 320g rhubarb pieces after cleaning and peeling

Pre heat the oven to 180°C and grease and line a 22cm square loose bottomed cake tin.

Prepare the rhubarb: clean the stalks, string them and cut into 1cm lengths.

Make the crumble first by rubbing the butter into the flour with your fingertips or using the pastry paddle of your mixer, then stir in the sugar. Leave aside while you make the cake.

Beat the butter with the sugar until fluffy, then add the eggs in one by one with a spoonful of flour each time. Add the vanilla flavouring and the rest of the flour.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and arrange the rhubarb pieces on top of the cake batter. Strew the crumble mixture over the top.

Bake for about 50 minutes and check if done – a skewer will come out clean – leave it another few minutes if needed, it depends a bit on how juicy the rhubarb is.
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Put the tin on a wire rack and leave the cake to cool in the tin for a few minutes.
Serve with some icing sugar sieved over the top or as a pudding with custard or icecream.
The cake will keep in a sealed tin for 2 days or so.