Rhubarb Ricotta Pound Cake
Rhubarb Ricotta Pound Cake
A delightful summer cake - starring rhubarb. The ricotta base keeps the cake light and the rhubarb berry glaze is the perfect harmony of tart & sweet.
Ingredients
- Double Recipe if desired, see note below**
- Rhubarb Swirl & Glaze:
- 1 1/2 cups finely chopped rhubarb
- 4 strawberries, hulled
- 4 blackberries (mix it up and add other berries too!)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup water
- 1 TBSP lemon juice
- 1 TBSP cornstarch
- Cake:
- 3/4 cups butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 4 oz whole milk ricotta
- 3 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups cake flour
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- Berry rhubarb glaze (from above)
- Extra strawberries for garnish
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 300°. Start preparing your glaze first. Bring all of the glaze ingredients to a boil in a saucepan. Then lower heat and reduce until the rhubarb is soft and tender, about 10 min.
- Step 2 Strain through a mesh sieve, using a spatula to push the fruit down. *Set aside the fruit that remains in the sieve – this will be the swirl filling of your cake. Return the strained sauce, to the sauce pan and whisk in cornstarch until the sauce boils and thickens, whisking constantly. Then chill the glaze for the duration of your cake making.
- Step 3 Now for your cake: Beat the softened butter with a heavy-duty electric stand mixer until creamy. Slowly add in the sugar, beating as you go, until light and fluffy. Add ricotta and continue beating until creamy. Add vanilla extract, then eggs, one by one, beating after each addition.Gradually add the cake flour to your batter. Beat in slowly until incorporated.
- Step 4 Pour half of your batter into a greased and floured 9″ cake pan. Add the fruit you set aside in Step 2 on top of the batter and swirl into the batter (see below). **If you chose to double the recipe, repeat this step so you have two layers. End with a layer of batter.
- Step 5 Bake your cake for one hour until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. Wait until completely cooled to glaze your cake with the rhubarb berry glaze. Garnish with strawberries and powdered sugar.
The rhubarb craze continues! I’ve definitely been inspired in the kitchen by working off a theme lately and this week’s subject is clearly the hardy rhubarb plant. I’m going to just come clean and tell you now: up until this year, I had never really cooked with rhubarb before… I know, I know – what kind of chef does that make me? It’s not that it intimidated me, I had just never really entertained the idea. But our recent round of trips to the local farmer’s markets has got me hooked on cooking with seasonal ingredients, so I felt up to the challenge. It was high time to take on rhubarb!
Today’s cake started with a vision of baking “something” strawberry-rhubarb, but evolved into a ricotta cake, swirled AND glazed with a berry rhubarb sauce.
The rhubarb jam is in the strainer, glaze in the bowl below:
Rhubarb jam pre-swirling:
Post swirling, waiting for next layer of batter:
I wanted to make the most of all of my ingredients, so nothing went to waste. The leftover fruit spread became a jam that we then paired with a whipped ricotta dip the very same night. Then the very next morning, I even swirled the rhubarb jam into my waffles (check out our instagram feed for a peek!). I really never get tired of finding inventive new ways to use, and reuse, ingredients.
Baking has been such a great distraction for me lately – waiting on baby #2 to arrive is like pulling teeth! – but I’m learning a lot as I go. A lot of our cooking is something we often can wing as we go along, but baking requires a lot more technique, finesse and a good amount of research before I tackle a recipe. Today’s lessons? Cakes require longer than you think they will to bake (I somehow thought 30 minutes would suffice and had to double that!) and a little batter doesn’t always go a long way.
**Note abut doubling ingredients – In my research, a lot of the recipes I came across were baked in bundt or tube pans but I really wanted to make a thin torte style cake – almost like a warm cheesecake. So I reduced the original batter recipe thinking that I wouldn’t need to fill quite as bag of a pan. When it first popped out of the oven I was a bit disappointed to see that it had not risen to the height I was expecting. So you may want to double the ingredients to make a slightly taller cake – I’ll leave that ultimate decision up to you. It’s purely an optical thing, it won’t change anything about the essence of the cake. You’ll just need to bake it longer than the one hour that I did.
Either way, you’ll be happy you tried this recipe. It’s a fun way to bake something new and different with rhubarb and pairing it with a ricotta cake is a unique twist. The cake is light and fluffy and the perfect thing to enjoy on a warm summer night.
