Recipe from Dorie Greenspan
Adapted by Jen Kim
The first peonies of the season (the coral ones, according to the flower vendor), asparagus, rhubarb, and strawberries have emerged in the marché. It’s spring in Paris. While I’ve been busy packing for another international move back to the States this time, I’ve been making time to bake and cook my favorite spring produce to catch the fleeting beauty of this season. Since Romaine and I have given away, sold, or shipped most of our things, our cooking and baking projects have to be simple.
This recipe is an adaptation of Dorie Greenspan's Rhubarb cake in Baking Chez Moi, one of my favorite cookbook authors. I’ve baked this cake several times with her recipe, and over the years, I’ve modified it to work for me. I’ve changed the rhubarb topping, skipping the maceration phase and adding strawberries to the rhubarb. I’ve swapped out most of the melted butter in the cake batter for oil because I love the moist crumb and oil cake produces, and I pop the batter directly into the skillet because I don’t have a cake pan. The resulting cake is fabulously delicious and is best served with a dollop of crème fraîche after a chic spring meal or as an opulent little bite with your morning coffee.
Recipe Type: Dessert
Time: 45 minutes
Servings: 6-8
Ingredients
Rhubarb and Strawberry Top
250 grams of strawberries washed and stems removed
500 grams rhubarb washed and cut into two-inch pieces
½ cup of white granulated sugar
Two tablespoons of butter
Cake
150 grams of all-purpose flour (1 ¼ cups)
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt
100 grams of light brown sugar (½ cup)
50 grams of white granulated sugar (¼ cup)
3 medium eggs (1 medium egg is around 55-65 grams)
1 ½ teaspoon vanilla
60 grams of neutral oil (sunflower, canola, grapeseed)
40 grams melted butter
Zest of half an orange or one lemon
Crème fraîche for serving
Equipment
9 inch or 24.6 cm ovenproof skillet such as a cast iron or carbon steel pan
Mixing bowls
Large fine mesh strainer
Whisk
Scale
Measuring spoons
Knife and cutting board for fruit
Silicone spatula
Instructions
Mise en place
Wash the fruit and cut the fruit; gather your ingredients. You can choose to pre-scale your ingredients into separate bowls, or if you’re feeling confident in weighing your ingredients scale, then you can scale them directly into the bowls (following the order of operations in this recipe of course) to save yourself from washing more dishes.
Preheat the oven to 180℃ 350℉.
Rhubarb and Strawberry Top
Cook the rhubarb, strawberry, and sugar in the skillet over medium heat until the fruit releases around a cup of liquid and shrinks to around half its original volume. This should take anywhere from five to seven minutes.
Take the pan off the heat and strain the fruit over a bowl to collect the syrup and return the strained fruit to the pan and place it on medium heat. Add the two tablespoons of butter and one tablespoon of the strained juice and cook until the butter is melted and the fruit has a nice glossy sauce. Take off the heat, and make sure the fruit is distributed evenly on the bottom of the pan. Set aside.
You can use the leftover syrup to make a soda (just add sparkling water, ice, and a lemon wedge) or make a cocktail with it.
Cake
In a medium mixing bowl, weigh the dry ingredients—flour, salt, and baking powder. Give the mixture a quick whisk and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl weigh the brown and white sugar, add the eggs and whisk immediately to mix the two (whisk immediately because the sugar can change the chemical structure of the protein in the eggs—which means clumpy drama). Add the vanilla, oil, and melted butter. Whisk. Finally, add the orange or lemon zest and whisk again.
Then, add half of the dry ingredients into the sugar and egg mixture and whisk gently until just combined. Then add the second half and whisk until just combined. Pour the cake batter evenly over the fruit in the skillet. Tap the pan gently on the counter to even out the batter and pop it into the oven on the middle rack.
Bake for 25 and rotate the cake in the middle of baking. The cake will be cooked when the top has browned and a paring knife or cake tester comes out clean when you poke the middle of the cake. Let cool for five minutes then invert the skillet carefully onto a large plate. If some pieces of rhubarb are left on the skillet, place them on top of the cake. Let cool for 3 hours and then serve with a generous dollop of crème fraîche.