Sunday, June 22, 2008

Rhubarb Streusel Cake

Okay. So it has been awhile. I've found myself content with my existing supply of recipes (my own and others'). Rhubarb cake awoke a wish for an old family stand-by, which we called "rhubarb cake" (imaginative, non?) but which is a rhubarb streusel cake and could, in some parts of the world, be better described as a "pudding." This was my aunt Catherine's staple spring cake. It is alternately too tart, too gooey, too sweet, and too cakey in a way that comes together deliciously.

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup potato starch
1/4 cup tapioca starch
1/4 cup amaranth flour
1/4 cup soy flour
3/4 tsp xanthan gum
1 slightly rounded tsp soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk
2 cups chopped rhubarb

Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup melted butter

Grease a 9x13" pan and preheat the oven to 350F.

Cream butter and sugar for one minute. Add eggs and vanilla and beat for one minute more at medium speed on an electric mixer.

Pour in well-whisked-to-combine dry ingredients. Also pour in buttermilk. Beat well for at least one full minute, until the batter is silky smooth and sticky in the annoying way that gluten-free batter gets sticky and rides up the beaters. Fold in rhubarb.

Spread batter evenly in the prepared pan. Mix topping ingredients and sprinkle them over the top in small streuselly dollops. Bake for about 45 minutes, until the centre tests done with a toothpick.