Weekend recipe: Rhubarb Cake from Nordic Kitchen

Rhubarb cake
SERVES 8

Cake layers
4 organic eggs
125g sugar
150g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
butter, for greasing

Rhubarb compote
300g rhubarb stalks
150g unrefined cane sugar
1 handful of lemon balm
½ vanilla pod

To assemble
50g blanched almonds
50g white chocolate, plus extra shavings
to decorate
500ml whipping cream
1 rhubarb stalk
a little sugar, for sprinkling

First make the cake layers. Beat the eggs
and sugar together in a bowl until pale and
foamy. Mix the flour and baking powder
together and sift into the batter, then fold in
gently with a spatula.

Grease a springform cake tin, about 22cm
in diameter, with butter and pour in the
cake batter. Bake the cake in the centre of
a preheated oven at 200.C/Gas Mark 6 for
about 30 minutes. Remove the cake from
the oven and leave to cool in the tin on a
wire rack. When the cake is completely cool,
carefully cut horizontally into 3 equal layers
with a sharp knife.

Now cook the compote. Cut off the tops
and bottoms of the rhubarb stalks, but be
careful not to remove the white ‘foot’ of the
stalk, which is where the rhubarb flavour
is most concentrated and best. Rinse the
stalks in cold water, cut into 1–2cm pieces
and put in an ovenproof dish with the lemon
balm. Split the vanilla pod lengthways,
scrape out the seeds and mix with a little of
the sugar, making them easier to distribute
in the dish. Mix the vanilla sugar into the rest
of the sugar, then sprinkle over the rhubarb.
Stir well and add the pod to the dish.

Bake in a preheated oven at 150°C/Gas
Mark 2 for 15–20 minutes until the rhubarb
is tender but still has a firm bite. Remove the
dish from the oven and leave the compote
to cool completely.

Chop the almonds and white chocolate
roughly. Whip the cream, set half aside for
decoration and gently fold the almonds
and chocolate into the other half. Add the
rhubarb compote and fold in.

Assemble the cake with the flavoured
whipped cream between each layer,
and finish by decorating it with the pure
whipped cream – for the best effect, use
a piping bag. Another decorative trick
is to create rhubarb shavings by running
a vegetable peeler lengthways along a
rhubarb stalk. Toss the shavings with a little
sugar before scattering over the cake and
finish with shavings of white chocolate.

Recipe taken from The Nordic Kitchen by Claus Meyer, available here