Foodie Friday: Rhubarb Crumb Cake Bars

Here we are a week later and I do indeed have another interesting recipe to share!

If your garden is anything like mine it's looking a bit over run with an abundance of rhubarb! Going out to the garden and picking some this afternoon I plucked away several dead and rotting bits that have perished in the extreme heat of the last few weeks and began puling fresh stems and trimming them as I went.

I guess I tugged a bit too much on this one because the whole cluster came away!

The recipe I picked to try this week is a recipe I originally found from Martha Stewart  but it looked like it needed a bit tweaking and there's nothing I love better than a good recipe mystery! The original is here and my rewritten version is below!

Rhubarb Crumb Cake Bars

Streusel
6 T. butter, melted
1 c. AP flour
1/2 c. light brown sugar
1/4 tsp. salt

Cake
1# rhubarb, cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 T. light brown sugar
1/4 AP flour

3/4 c. AP flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 butter, room temperature
1 c. powdered sugar
2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan and set it aside.

Make the streusel by mixing the melted butter, flour, salt and brown sugar together with a fork until it is thoroughly blended. Set it aside for later.

Next, mix the rhubarb together with the 1T. of brown sugar and the 1/4 c. flour until all the pieces are coated in flour.

Tip: Coating fruit with flour before putting it into a cake or muffin batter does two things: it helps keep it suspended in the batter as it bakes so the fruit doesn't fall to the bottom of the batter and it helps to keep juicier fruit from bleeding all through the batter.

In a small bowl mix together the flour, salt and baking powder. Set it aside for later.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a medium bowl with a hand mixer combine the butter and powdered sugar and beat until it becomes light in color and texture. Add the eggs, one at a time and vanilla and beat thoroughly. (In the first picture you will see the eggs may look a little funny- that is because when baking almost always the eggs and vanilla get added at the same point in the recipe so I just mix them together for expediencies sake!)  Add the prepared flour mixture and mix in.

Spread the batter in the prepared pan, this will take some patience as it will look like there is not enough batter but if you start with dollops in the corners and work to the center it should spread evenly. 

Sprinkle the batter with the prepared rhubarb.

Sprinkle the rhubarb with the prepared streusel. 

Bake the cake for 40-50 minutes until a toothpick poked in the center of the cake comes out just about clean. 

Allow the cake to cool and cut it into squares. Cutting the pan 4 x 5 gives you 20 2 inch squares. 

Eat Well!