Rhubarb and Custard Cake

Sugar and spice and all things nice... that’s what little girls are made of.

Pretty cakes for pretty girls...

And what better cake to celebrate a gorgeous little girl’s first birthday (and another slightly older gorgeous lady) than a Rhubarb and Custard Cake.  Plenty  of pink fresh rhubarb, a cinnamon spiced cake with a layer of homemade custard.  Delicious.  I knew the type of flavours I wanted then came across a very pretty version on Eat LittleBird.   With the usual tweak of reducing the sugar, I also added more rhubarb, some cinnamon and in my 2^nd attempt added almond meal which added more interest to the cake component.

A layer of homemade custard....

With rhubarb still growing in abundance and custard so easy to whip up in the Thermomix how could I resist.   And most importantly it looks pretty!

Rhubarb and Custard Cake

Custard

50g  cornflour

50 raw caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 free range eggs

500g whole milk

Cake

Approx 4 stalks of rhubarb (choose pink young stalks for the top)

2 tbls rapadura sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

180g unsalted butter

100g rapadura or raw sugar (milled in Thermomix for 10 seconds on speed 8 then set aside)

2 free range eggs

1 tsp vanilla

180g SR flour

60g almond meal (made in Thermomix or store bought)

Cake

• Preheat oven to 180°
• Line a 20cm springform tin with baking paper
• Cut 8 pieces of rhubarb to fit in a star formation in your cake tin and set aside
• Chop remaining rhubarb into 1cm pieces, place in a baking dish and sprinkle with 1 tbl sugar and bake for approx 20 minutes while making the cake and custard

Custard

• Place sugar and flour in Thermomix bowl and pulverise for 10 seconds on speed 8
• Add remaining ingredients and cook for 8 minutes at 90° on speed 4
• Transfer to smaller bowl and allow to thicken on cooling (I placed in the freezer as I was continuing the cake immediately)

Cake

• Place sugar and butter in Thermomix bowl and cream for 20 seconds on speed 5 (no need to wash bowl between)
• Add 2 eggs and vanilla and continue for another 20 seconds on speed 4
• Add flour, ½ tsp cinnamon and almond meal and mix for 10 seconds on speed 4 scraping down if required and repeat for another 5 seconds
•   Spoon ½ mixture into prepared baking tin, sprinkle over cooked rhubard then pour over cooled custard (keep a small bowl or two aside for the kids and they’ll be happy while you continue cooking)
• Carefully spoon remaining cake mix over custard.  This is a little tricky as it’s quite a thick cake mixture but rest assured it will rise and fill the gaps on cooking
• Arrange longer rhubarb pieces into a star formation on top and sprinkle with a mix of remaining 1 tbls rapadura sugar and ½ tsp cinnamon
• Bake for approx 1 hr or until cooked (it’s a little tricky to tell when it’s cooked as an inserted skewer will be moist from the custard but it will be browned and coming away from the edges)

 

Delicious served warm but also great cooled if you can wait that long

Enjoy!