Spring has sprung: rhubarb cake

And Annalena has been reveling in it. And neglecting her gentle readers. Mi dispiace, as my amici will recognize as an apology immediately.
I have been enjoying the "markers" of spring, even if it is pushing it here in NY. The first local ramps have come in, and that is it. So I have been splurging on importing the stuff from hither and yon, as well as using up what is left of the spring freeze fest. That includes a couple of bags of rhubarb, and that's what this one is all about. That an a dedication to my sweet friend Jeremy. Why? Well, Annalena does not need a reason; but if you want one, because this cake makes me think of Jeremy. The minute I read the recipe it seemed to have his name written all over it, and in honor of Jeremy, who is much more old fashioned than even yours truly, I left behind my kitchen apparatus and did this one by hand. It's a snap. Try it.
My standard rhubarb cake comes from the King Arthur Baking Sheet, and it's called "rhubarb ripple cake." I commend it to you. It is on their website, and it is internal to this blog; however, this new one may be better. It is definitely purer. And again, this reminds me of Jeremy, who in turn reminds me of Parsifal, in so many ways.

Abbastanza. Lets cook. Prheat your oven to 350

You start with 3 cups of all purpose flour. It's not all alike. Use a good, unbleached one, organic if you can. Mix it with a big pinch of salt. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar, and a half teaspoon of baking soda. Now, get a stick of unsalted butter, cut it into pieces, dump it into that flour, and work it in with your fingers, until you get a sandy texture. If you remember, take the butter out half an hour before you're going to make this cake, and it makes things easy. But you don't have to. it's still very easy.

In a separate bowl, combine a half cup of a dairy product and one large egg.. I used yogurt, even though the recipe called for buttermilk. I find that I can substitute yogurt for buttermilk in just about every baking application, and I always have yogurt on hand, never buttermilk. You can "make" buttermilk by adding a tablespoon of white vinegar to whole milk, or you can use whole milk. Or sour cream. SOMETHING. Stir t hese together, and then pour it into the flour mixture and moosh it up with your hands. It's fun, and it's easy. Then divide it in half.

Pat or roll out half to a ten inch circle. If you have a ten inch springform pan, this is very easy to measure. In any event, you can measure ten inches, can't you? Put that into a baking dish of some kind.

Now, here's the fun part. Cut up a pound and a half of rhubarb OR use a pound and a half of frozen, which is what I did. Put that right on top of the dough, and then pour a cup of sugar over that. Now, roll out the rest of the dough, put that on top of the rhubarb, and pinch the edges together.

Take an egg , and beat it with a teaspoon of water, and then paint the top of hte cake with this.

Don't leave out this step. DON'T.

Bake this at 350 for about an hour. You'll see the rhubarb oozing out of the sides, and the cake will get a nice golden color from the egg. The original recipe called for pouring half a cup of sugar onto the top of the cake as soon as it came out of the oven. I did that, but I don't know what good it does, except for decorative effect. And you're done.

I'm going to try this cake again with another fruit - probably frozen blueberries. Got lots of those from last year, too.

And Jeremy, you go and make this better. I know how your mind works and I can see the ginger in the rhubarb already. Or the lemon peel. Or the brown sugar and cardamom. You're the best, sweetheart, and you know it. So I'll call this Jeremy's cake from now on, how's that?