the perfect mother's day cake

it's a very good year for rhubarb. we've got a double row of it and it's almost literally coming out of our years. we've picked a whole wheelbarrow full twice and you can't scarcely see it. it hasn't made a dent. these are very old rhubarb roots that we moved to another spot when we moved here four years ago. we divided a bunch of the roots at that time and it obviously made the rhubarb very, very happy, as it's thriving incredibly. i find myself thinking up ways of using rhubarb. i've made 6 bottles of cordial so far and should make about 10x more (seriously, i could probably do this in commercial quantities if i had the time). so in honor of mother's day on this rainy sunday afternoon, i turned to my mom's recipe for rhubarb coffee cake to provide us some comfort and to use up a bit of that rhubarb.

i had a conversation with husband about why it's called a coffee cake, when there's no coffee in it, but i explained that it's because you eat it with your afternoon coffee. i think for me, coffee cake is also darker and deeper than normal cake. in this case, the recipe calls for brown sugar, rather than white and i think that lends to the deep coffee cake goodness. i think it also has to do with not having frosting per se. so a coffee cake is a simpler cake.

mom's rhubarb coffee cake

Cream together:

1/2 C butter

2 C brown sugar

3 eggs

1 C buttermilk

1 tsp. vanilla

Add:

2 C flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

pinch of salt

3 C rhubarb, cut into small pieces (between 1/2" and 1", depending on how thick your rhubarb is).

Pour it into a buttered/floured 9x13 baking pan and sprinkle with:

1/2 C sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

Bake at 180°C/350°F for 30-35 minutes.

Serve with coffee or even a cup of tea. Enjoy.

what to do when your tree only produces a dozen plums

we have a rather ancient plum tree in the garden. it wasn't doing very well, so a couple of years ago, husband severely pruned it back. at first, this appeared to make it very sad. but now, the procedure has quite literally borne fruit and there were plums on it for the first time since we've lived here. they weren't many (only about a dozen), but they were beautiful and sweet. so i knew i had to do something special with them. then a friend posted this recipe for a gingery plum cake on her facebook wall.

i'd been in the kitchen all day, making chutney and raspberry jam and pickles and lasagne and bread when i decided i'd better make the cake before the plums went bad. it was late in the day and i didn't want to make a grocery store run, so although i didn't quite have all the ingredients, i knew i could improvise.

plum gingerbread cake

1 dozen plums, halved and de-stoned
3 spoonfuls of sugar
butter for greasing the pan

the cake:
175 grams butter
100 grams brown sugar
3 discs of palm sugar
80 ml golden syrup
80 ml molasses
2 large eggs
200 ml milk
300 grams flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. cardamon
1/4 tsp. allspice

preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. grease a square pan with butter and line the base of it with baking parchment. butter the paper and sprinkle with sugar. arrange the plums prettily in the bottom with the cut side facing the sugar.

melt the butter and the two kinds of sugar and the syrup in a saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth and all of the sugar is melted. (this is where i went wrong. i was doing about 12 other things and didn't pay very close attention. my mixture went to a rather rolling boil and began to show early signs of turning to caramel. this, as it turned out, was a very good thing.) remove from heat and allow it to cool for 10 minutes or so before stirring in the eggs. alternate the dry ingredients and milk and mix to a smooth batter.

pour the batter carefully over the plum and bake for 45+ minutes. you can turn it out of the tin if you're serving to guests and want to be fancy, but you can just as well leave it in for easy storage.

notes: do let that sugar-butter mixture get a bit caramel-y, you won't regret it. you can use 175grams of brown sugar, i just didn't have that much left and had some of those palm sugar discs languishing in the cupboard. i also didn't have enough golden syrup in the cupboard, so i topped it off with some of my precious molasses, which made the cake even more like a proper gingerbread, so that was a good thing. 

i can safely advise eating it for breakfast with a bit of cream poured over it. if you serve it as dessert, it would go very nicely with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream. it was a very worthy recipe for my precious plums.

a berry good year

red currants (and proof that there was the occasional bit of sunshine this summer)

our rainy, cool weather this year was a boon for the berries. our strawberry season lasted a month and the red and black currant bushes were loaded with berries that i made into bottles and bottles of cordial for the winter. the blackcurrant cordial might be the best one of them all, tho' the more recent one i've made of elderberries is a close second.

blackcurrants

berry cordials

4 cups (1 kilo) of berries (red currants, blackcurrants, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, elderberries)

2 cups sugar

if you want to give it some zip, add some slices of fresh ginger root, or throw in a vanilla bean. i also mixed them occasionally - red and black currants together. strawberry and rhubarb (it's a classic), tho' i kept raspberries and elderberries alone, because they're so outstanding on their own. the elderberries have the faintest undertone of their spring version - the elderflower, but with layers of autumn on top. mixed with hot water and a dash of vanilla vodka (see below), they make a gorgeous, warming drink, for a nippy but clear autumn day.  i made several batches using honey instead of sugar, since we've also got our own bees and i had a lot of honey on hand - the result was a deeper, more complex cordial. 

autumn raspberries - they produced from august - october!

elderberries

"rumtopf" - with vodka, red currants, black currants, strawberries and sugar

i've been throwing a handful of whatever berry is in season into this jar and topping it up with vodka all summer  - it will make a lovely fruity tipple come christmas time - filled with the echoes of summer during that dark time of year. all you do is take a cup of organic sugar, all the berries you have at hand and keep them covered with vodka. whenever you add more berries, if they're not submerged, add more vodka. this one was started in june and i added the last berries in october (photo from the beginning). you can also use rum (hence the name - rumtopf), but we're vodka drinkers around here, so that's what we used.

black currant cordial

the cordials can be mixed with fizzy water for a sparkling drink. they're great with white wine or a dash of vanilla vodka. they can be quite tasty with lemon schweppes. they're also just fine with plain water - hot or cold, depending on your weather.  the limits are only those of imagination.

thanks to my buddy chris, who is a co-contributor over on the sustainable life blog, i ventured into making my own vanilla vodka. she was making vanilla extract and i've got a batch of that going as well, but decided to make some vanilla vodka for drinking as well - it tastes more natural than the absolut version. it's a very nice companion when you're using these cordials as the base for a cocktail. if you check eBay, you can find great prices on vanilla pods in bulk - i got 30+ for €11 including shipping. speaking of which, it's time to order them again, in preparation for winter baking.

green hummus and a garden bounty pasta

the garden is winding down, but it has been a bountiful summer - borlotti beans (that's the red pods here), tomatoes, small delectable aubergines, tasty cucumbers (so much more flavor than the store-bought kind), artichokes (none visible in this photo), small succulent squash, broad beans and autumn raspberries coming out of our ears for more than a month. the bounty from the garden has been so good that it's almost turned us vegetarian without any effort (tho' we haven't given up bacon - can one be a bacon-tarian?).

with tomatoes and cucumbers as plentiful as they've been, we've tossed them together with feta or mozzarella and a bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar and some fresh, chopped parsley (it's been a good year for parsley with all of the rain we've had) or sometimes mint for salads nearly every night.

but the real revelation has been a nigel slater-inspired broad bean hummus. we've experienced the entire spectrum of the broad bean...from tiny little green and nearly pealike ones, to the large mature kind that you have to boil and then peel away the grey outer husk before pureeing them into a delicious green hummus.

green hummus

20-25 large broad bean pods (these may be called favas in the US or hestebønner in denmark)

2 cloves garlic

1 big spoonful of tahini

salt & freshly-ground pepper

olive oil

handful of parsley or mint

shell the broad beans - it should result in a generous cup or so (you don't have to be that exact), boil them in salted water until they're tender (about 20 minutes). drain the water, allow them to cool and remove the greyish outer covering (it comes off easily after boiling). throw the beans into your food processor with the garlic, tahini (nigel doesn't use tahini in his, but i liked it better with tahini - it gives it that hummus kick that it otherwise lacks) and the herb of your choice (sometimes we wanted the freshness of mint, sometimes the brightness of parsley - use whichever, according to your mood), add a generous sprinkle of salt and a good glug of olive oil. whirr it up in the food processor. if it doesn't go smooth, add more olive oil until it's a smooth, hummus-like consistency. serve it with freshly-baked bread. 

if you make a simple chopped tomato, garlic, basil mixture with a bit of olive oil and balsamic for bruschetta, you'll have a meal with simple ingredients from the garden paired with a loaf of bread lovingly baked. 

i made this at least once a week, all summer long. the beans give you the protein you need so you don't have to eat meat. it refrigerates well and tastes even better the next day, once the garlic and tahini have melded with the broad beans. 

*  *  *

very often this summer, i would wander out to the garden around 5:30 or so, with nothing much in mind for dinner. the day i gathered the veggies you see above, i brought them in, washed them and just started chopping, not sure where it would take me. 

garden bounty pasta

handful of borlotti beans

125g bacon

1 small onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 small aubergine, diced

1 small zucchini/courgette, diced

handful of swiss chard leaves, chopped

2-3 small/medium tomatoes, diced

salt & pepper

chili (optional)

chopped, fresh parsley (or oregano or marjoram or basil if you have it)

1 package linguini (or spaghetti or shells or whatever pasta you like).

freshly grated parmesan to garnish

boiled up the pretty pink-spotted borlotti beans and crisped up some chopped bacon with some onion and garlic while they were boiling. add the diced aubergine and zucchini (courgette) squash. when the beans are done, drain them and turn them in the bacon and veggie mixture. boil up some fresh linguini noodles, or whatever pasta you have on hand would be fine. once the pasta is nearly done, add some chopped tomatoes and chopped swiss chard to the vegetable mix at the last minute, so that the tomatoes are just warmed, but keep their structure and the chard wilted, but retains its green brilliance. salt and pepper to taste and it is ready to serve over the pasta. garnish with freshly chopped parsley and fresh parmesan. you could also sprinkle some toasted pine nuts on top if you had some on hand. 

this became a fast favorite and has also been on our table, with slight adjustments for what veggies were ready, for much of the summer.

if you don't have a garden, just visit your local farmer's market or the fruit and vegetable counter of your local grocery store, and see what's in season.

the ruby goodness of rhubarb

awhile ago, i promised to do a rhubarb post. i love rhubarb. it's one of the first things to appear in the garden in the spring and it just keeps on giving all summer long, especially if you keep picking it. our place came with about a dozen rhubarb plants and once we moved them from the grassy area where they were being choked out and separated them a bit (into more like two dozen plants), they have thrived, as you can see above (in fact, i need to get out there and pick).

one of the most delicious things i've made is a rhubarb-vanilla cordial. as you already know, i've gone a bit mad for cordials this year. they're just so much nicer to serve to your guests than a regular old purchased soda. with all of these good things in the garden, it gets my creative juices flowing and i've been trying all sorts of combinations of things (coming soon, berries).  but this rhubarb-vanilla one is one we reach for again and again.

rhubarb-vanilla cordial

20-25 stalks of rhubarb

1 vanilla pod

a little bit of water in the bottom of the pan, just to get started.

500 grams sugar (2 cups)

clean and slice the rhubarb into manageable chunks. place it in a pot with the vanilla pod (split it open to release the little black flecks) and put a little water in the bottom of the pan, just to get things started. gently heat it and simmer until the rhubarb has gone completely soft. i usually wander away at this point, so i'm not sure how long this takes - maybe between 20 and 30 minutes. remove from the heat and let it cool down a bit. strain through a cheesecloth, collecting the beautiful pink juice. squeeze out the cloth, getting all of the good juices. you should have about a liter of juice, but if you don't, you can add water to get to that. if you have more than a liter, even better. return the juice to the pan and add sugar. i used organic sugar and as you can see above (my rhubarb cordial is next to the honey), my cordial is a bit dark. if you use regular white sugar, it will stay a bright pink. bring it to the boil again and then pour it into a sterilized, prepared bottle.

i often fish out the vanilla pod to be used again in another batch, as there's lots of goodness left in it and they're too precious to just throw away. you can also rinse it off and stick it in a jar with some sugar for a fragrant vanilla sugar.  and i give the rhubarb mash that's left over to the hens - they gobble it right up.

this week, i'm going to make a batch with a hunk of ginger instead of vanilla - i think rhubarb and ginger will be very nice together.

in my opinion, the most perfect companion to rhubarb is the strawberry and i've made this rhubarb-strawberry crisp half a dozen times during the month our strawberries were in season.  it's just as good with rhubarb by itself, but rhubarb and strawberries are a match made in heaven. in contrast to many crisps (or crumbles - not sure of the difference - do any of you have an opinion?) it has the topping on the bottom as a sort of crust as well. that makes the dish.  it's a variation of a recipe my mom sent to me and i'm not sure where it originated.

strawberry-rhubarb crisp

1 cup flour
3/4 cup oatmeal
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup melted butter

mix together and place half of the mixture in an buttered baking dish (i use one that's ceramic and rectangular, but you could use a round tart dish as well).

4 cups fresh rhubarb (cubed) and strawberries.
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
2 T. cornstarch
1 t. vanilla

in a saucepan, cook the fruit, sugar and water until softened and gently boiling. mix the cornstarch with a couple of tablespoons of cold water and stir it into the hot fruit mixture. add the vanilla and pour into your pan. put the remaining crust mixture on top.

optional: sprinkle with 1/2 cup chopped walnuts. bake at 180°C/350°F until the top is golden and crispy.

serve in a bowl with a bit of fresh cream on top.

whether it's an everyday evening treat or for guests, it can't go wrong.