We have a fairly ‘home-grown’ Cakes & Bakes recipe this week; it’s a rhubarb and vanilla sponge pudding. The rhubarb was grown on our veg patch…
…and the eggs came from our very own little hen, Shirley.
The recipe I used states 1kg of rhubarb is required – that’s the trimmed weight. I think I completely overestimated how much we had growing; I just about scraped together 500 grams. No problem, I simply halved the recipe.
The trick of coating the raw, sliced rhubarb in a mixture of vanilla-infused sugar and flour worked a treat – something that can be done for all manner of stewed fruit. It helped create a thick, sweet, flavoursome syrup.
When I was spooning it over the pre-cooked rhubarb, the sponge batter seemed a bit thick however it was the perfect consistency once the pudding was baked. The sponge top needs to stand up to the pouring over of cream or hot custard.
Of all the rhubarb recipes I’ve made over the years, Justin and I agreed that this tops the lot.
As soon as our rhubarb crown has produced another 500 grams worth of stalks, I’ll be making this again!
Click here or on the image below to save the rhubarb and vanilla sponge pudding recipe to Pinterest
- 1 vanilla pod
- 300g/10½oz caster sugar
- 2 tbsp plain flour
- 1kg/2lb 3oz forced rhubarb (trimmed weight)
- 115g/4oz lightly salted butter, softened
- 2 eggs
- 150g/5¼oz self-raising flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- pinch of salt
- 3 tbsp milk
- Icing sugar for dusting
- Preheat your oven to 180°C/350°F/Gas mark 4
- Slit the vanilla pod open lengthways and scrape out the seeds with the tip of a knife into a mixing bowl (save the pod for later)
- Add 185g/6½oz of the sugar and mix them with your fingertips, then stir in the plain flour
- Wipe the rhubarb stalks clean, cut into 5cm/2" pieces, then add to the bowl and toss to coat. Leave for 20 minutes, stirring now and then, until all the pieces of fruit are coated in sticky sugar/flour mix
- Spoon the fruit over the base of a shallow 2-litre/3½ fl oz baking dish (the shallower the dish, the quicker the sponge will cook). It will look like quite a lot of fruit, but don't worry - it collapses during cooking
- Cut the reserved vanilla pod into 4 pieces and poke them in amongst the rhubarb
- Cover and bake for 15 minutes
- For the sponge topping, beat the butter and remaining 115g/4oz sugar in a mixing bowl with a wooden spoon (or an electric mixer) for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy
- Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of the self-raising flour with the second egg
- Beat in the vanilla extract
- Sift over the rest of the flour and a pinch of salt, then gently fold in along with the milk using a metal spoon, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible
- Remove the dish of rhubarb from the oven, discard the vanilla pod pieces and drop small spoonfuls of the sponge mixture roughly over the top of the fruit. Don’t worry about a few gaps, these will fill in as the sponge rises and cooks
- Bake for about 35 minutes until the sponge is cooked through and crisp and brown on top Remove the dish from the oven and leave to sit for 10 minutes
- Dust the top with a little icing sugar
- Serve with pouring cream, ice cream or hot custard
