When in Doubt, Bake

Our family is especially fond of rhubarb, that strange vegetable/fruit that looks like prehistoric celery. Technically, this is rhubarb season, though it doesn’t grow well here in North Carolina.

About this time of year, my mom makes rhubarb freezer jam for our families. It is a family favorite and the only jam my father can safely eat, as he is allergic to most fruits. When we lived in the Midwest, rhubarb was plentiful and fairly cheap. Now we have to special order it through a fruit wholesaler. But it is well worth it.

If you would like to know how we make the jam, you can find my blog post from last Spring here.

This year, since the girls are still doing school online thanks to the Corona Virus, they were home to help. We made it the day’s Home Ec lesson. With 4 of us working, we made lots of jam, and still had some rhubarb left over.

I decided to use some to make a rhubarb cake, a dump cake to be exact. I do hate that name for cakes, so I am just calling it cake. If you haven’t ever made a dump cake, it is called that because you simply dump the ingredients into the pan for a fairly foolproof cake.

I had read another food blogger who liked to roast rhubarb, to intensify its flavors a bit more, so I added one more step to a simple cake, but it is still very easy indeed.

What I like most about rhubarb is that cooked appropriately, with plenty of sugar, it makes whatever you are baking, or turning into jam, a perfect sweet and sour combination, a little like a sour candy.

For this recipe, 1/4 cup of sugar is mixed with the rhubarb along with the zest and juice of one lime before roasting. Then another 3/4 cup of sugar is added before baking the cake.

The next steps are to simply sprinkle the Jello across the top of the rhubarb, then the cake mix. Add some water, and cover with thinly sliced butter and bake. That’s it. It’s that simple.

We had plenty of rhubarb, but you may find it difficult to find or too expensive to buy a whole pound, or maybe you just want to mix it up a little. You can add fresh berries with the rhubarb, or make the same cake using only fresh berries. If you use a sweeter berry, you may want to use less sugar, just experiment a bit.

It is best served warm with ice cream or whipped cream on top. I think it tastes like summer, as it brings back memories from my childhood. It may become your go-to summer dessert to bring to picnics and gatherings, when we are allowed to gather again.