It never ceases to amaze me that merely seconds after the Christmas bumpf is put away the Easter goodies are brazenly shaking their arse in the supermarket aisle.
I mean, seriously, are there actually people that stock up on Humpty eggs so far in advance?
I can just imagine one of those hoarders you see on that TV show, with piles of newspapers clogging up with hall and Tupperware that hasn’t had a lid in centuries bursting out from under the couch, with cupboards stocked full of Easter eggs in case they run out closer to the date.
If they were smart they would stock up on all the reduced priced stuff after Easter in anticipation for the following year… it’s almost as long to wait.
I, however, am a tad lacklustre in the Easter department. Maybe because my kids are still too little to eat their body weight in chocolate (or I’m too uptight to let D man eat more than one little egg), but I never really got the point of buying expensive chocolate eggs to celebrate the death of a dude…….but that’s just me. As a kid I asked for a harmonica rather than chocolate one year, and I still have it. I never did learn how to play the blues but my kids love it.
They can’t play the blues either though.
One thing I am totally down with though is Hot Cross Buns. I love them.
We all love them.
I’ve been nurturing my rhubarb since the inception of the garden but it’s been a little slow off the mark. The stalks are still very green, instead of deep lovely magenta, but I could wait no longer!
I really wanted to make a cake out of my rhubarb but I’ve digging on the Hot Cross Bun so bad that I thought maybe some kind of yeasty, sweet bread, joy could be worth an experiment…..and boy, oh boy, oh boy, this is really great, the perfect way to tend my growing edge this month!
It was a bit of an experiment, but I also had half an eye on a Stephanie Alexander yeast cake recipe, so I wasn’t running blind.
I first discovered that Rhubarb and Pear go together like ramalangadingdong at Messina Gelato…..and wanted to capture a little of that love.
This really needs to be eaten straight away….all of it.
Shame.
I did eat some the following day and it was still good, but by the next day it had lost it’s je ne sais quoi. So eat it quick!
What you will need :
For the cake –
- 120 gm butter, coarsely chopped
- 1 2/3 cups plain flour
- 30gm castor sugar
- 10gm dried yeast
- 120 ml milk
- Finely grated rind of 1 orange
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
For the Rhubarb and Pear filling
- 300gm rhubarb, finely chopped
- 2 firm, ripe pears, finely chopped
- ¼ cup caster sugar
- 1 tbsp orange juice
- 2 teaspoon raspberry jam
Rhubarb glaze
- 50 gm caster sugar
- Juice of ½ orange
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essense
- 40 gm rhubarb, thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons icing sugar
Pop your butter into a small saucepan on a low heat and melt, add milk and heat until just lukewarm.
Mix your flour, yeast, sugar and grated orange rind in a bowl and combine, then make a well. Pop your dough hooks onto your electric mixer. Stick your hooks in and whilst their on low add your milk mix in and add the egg and the egg yolk. Knead for a few minutes until it’s nice and smooth.
Transfer to a buttered bowl, cover with plastic wrap and stand in a warm place until doubled in size (1 hour). Don’t be scared if it’s quite sloppy. It’s not a firm dough.
On a lightly floured surface, knead lightly to knock it back down, and then place on an oven tray lined with baking paper. Roll (I floured my rolling pin, but found it easier to shape it with my hands)and stretch it out to a 20cm x 35cm rectangle, spread with your jam and set aside.
For rhubarb and pear filling, place rhubarb onto a tray in a single layer, sprinkle with the sugar and bake on 180C for 5 minutes. The first time I did this I didn’t roast it and it was still quite al dente. The roasting also brings out the natural sweetness. Remove and cool.
Combine rhubarb and remaining ingredients in a bowl and spread over dough, leaving a 5cm border along the long sides. Cut long sides through to filling at 3cm intervals using a pair of kitchen scissors, then fold long ends over to meet in the centre, pressing the ends to seal.
Cover with a tea towel and stand in a warm place for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180C. Bake yeast cake until crust is golden and a skewer inserted withdraws clean (25-30 minutes). Cool on tray for 15 minutes, then cool to room temperature on a wire rack.
Meanwhile, for glaze, stir caster sugar, lemon juice, vanilla and 50ml water in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until sugar dissolves, add rhubarb and bring to the simmer. Cook until rhubarb is translucent and liquid is syrupy (4-5 minutes), then strain into bowl discarding the chunky. Stir icing sugar and syrup in a bowl until smooth, and thin with a little water to drizzling consistency if necessary. I added a hint of red colouring just to make it pretty.
Drizzle over cake and serve it on up.
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