Taming Evil Celery: Rhubarb Cake
In general I way prefer cooking to baking. Why? Because I am fairly sloppy about measurements…and lazy about doing things just so. I like to just go with my instincts and toss stuff together that seems like it would be good. Great for cooking…but a real disaster for baking. Every once in a while I come across what I call a cook’s baking recipe… meaning it is fairly fool proof and has many opportunities for tinkering. This particular recipe for rhubarb cake came off of my CSA farm’s website and I thought I would pass it along to those out there who are trying to figure out what to do with their own evil celery.
Now…here comes the fun part…the tinkering. Next time I make this I am going to reduce the amount of butter by at least 3 tbs for both health and flavor reasons. The butter/fat in the cake felt like it coated my tongue…dulling the natural thrill of rhubarb’s tartness. Also…the cake batter had no sweetener in it and I felt it could use it. I am thinking a little local honey action. My third tinker would be to reduce the amount of sugar added to the rhubarb and add a naturally sweet fruit…like berries…if I can ever manage to wrangle a few away from the fruit bats I am raising. I had considered the whole wheat option to increase the nutrition but honestly think it would make it too heavy.
You might be saying…wait a minute Needley…why are you saying this is a good recipe if you pretty much have decided to revamp the whole thing? It is a good recipe because it CAN be revamped and still come out looking like a rhubarb cake. You pretty much CAN”T screw it up…unless you add arsnic in it or something. Heck…it would still look good- just wouldn’t be a big hit at the school bake sale.