Rhubarb Crumb Cake

How can I explain my relationship with this cake? The recipe comes from my grandma, when we went through a rhubarb frenzy a few years ago wherein we tried a good number of rhubarb recipes to find our favourites—because we’re both crazy about rhubarb. But it was this spring that I really fell in love with this cake.

In the valley in the spring, tables begin to pop up in people’s front yards on which they sell whatever goods have been thriving in their back yards, or acres, or farms. I’ve bought delicious strawberries, jam, pumpkin, butternut squash, preserves, and local eggs by the side of the road. This spring, though, I kept spotting delicious bunches of rhubarb, first in someone’s driveway, then later at Stirlings, and I just couldn’t pass them by. So I bought rhubarb upon rhubarb, and although I have many treasured rhubarb recipes, I just kept making this cake. There was something about the texture, and that crumb topping (especially when I started making it with coconut oil, which gave it a wonderful sort of roundness) that kept drawing me back. So I made this cake five or six times last summer. I made it for myself, I made it for guests, I made it for dinners, and I sent one with Janelle to Toronto when she went. And I ate it many mornings for breakfast.

The original recipe had butter in the batter and butter in the crumb, and calls for white flour. Since I rarely cook with butter, I swapped the butter in the batter for canola oil, and the butter in the crumb for coconut oil. For the flour, I used a mix of white and whole wheat in the batter, and a mix of whole wheat flour and oats in the crumb. The result is addictive. (I wonder if they grow rhubarb in Indonesia.)

Rhubarb Crumb Cake

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup canola oil (or softened butter)
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 cup flour (either 2 cups all-purpose flour, or 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour)
• 2 1/2 cup fresh diced rhubarb

For Topping:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup rolled oats
• 1/4 cup coconut oil or softened butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon 

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and butter a 9 x 13 inch cake pan
2. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt
3. In a large bowl, stir together the canola oil or butter, sugar, eggs, and sour cream
4. Stir the flour mixture into the batter in two batches, and then stir in the diced rhubarb
5. Pour the batter into your prepared pan
6. In another bowl, mix topping ingredients with a spoon or the tips of your fingers, until the mixture looks like bread crumbs
7. Sprinkle the topping over the batter and bake the cake at 350 degrees F for 34 min. The cake is done when it is springy to the touch, and a tooth pick inserted into the middle comes out clean.