Pretty in Pink: Strawberry Rhubarb Cake Makes the Most of Seasonal Flavors

I first tasted rhubarb on a dare. The family next door to my childhood home had a son my age, and sometimes we talked across the fence between our classes. One day I went out and there was Adam, holding what looked like a large stalk of pink celery. He said it was rhubarb and dared me to bite the raw stalk. I was never one to pass up a direct challenge, so I accepted. I bit into the stem and discovered the sourest substance known to mankind. I spat it out as soon as the first rhubarb molecule hit my tongue. He insisted that people ate it all the time. I didn’t believe it. Eating rhubarb could only bring suffering. This could permanently alter your taste buds, so you’ll never be able to taste anything sweet again.

The first time I paired the vile vegetable from my garden with rhubarb in my grandmother’s delicious pie, I was amazed. I was also shocked to discover that my favorite cookies from Great Aunt Velma contained rhubarb. I had to take the time to mentally align the horror of raw rhubarb with the utter deliciousness of cooked, sweetened rhubarb, but after wrapping my head around it, I became a huge rhubarb fan.

When my husband and I moved to Vancouver, the first thing I did was buy rhubarb at the Vancouver Farmers Market. It got so big the next year that I put rhubarb in every batch of jam, in every crisp and pie. My husband started asking me to please, please make even just an apple crumble without rhubarb. I looked at him and said, “What the hell am I supposed to do with all this rhubarb?” He said he didn’t care what I did with it as long as it stopped polluting his apples. I learned that it’s best to occasionally treat him to an all-apple dessert, if only so I can put more rhubarb in other things later.

During those happy years of ERE (Extreme Rhubarb Excess), I learned about a dessert called rhubarb cream cake, which creates its own custard layer when baking. I was intrigued but never got around to it until recently. Now I’m sad because it’s delicious and I could have eaten it all along.

However, I gave the recipe a seasonal twist by combining rhubarb and strawberries. Rhubarb season is coming to an end and strawberry season is just beginning, so it’s the best time of year to make the most of this fortuitous overlap. In fact, I was driving home from buying some rhubarb when I saw a berry standing on the side of the road. I ate a whole pint when I got home but luckily I still had enough for the cake.

Cream cake is easy to make, especially if you use a boxed cake mix. Don’t worry. I think the important thing to remember is that I am not a professional cook and the goal of my time in the kitchen is not to make everything from scratch but to make anything at all. When I think about it in those terms, I realize that the people I cook for, including myself, should be very grateful that I put in any effort. I would just as easily go to a restaurant or eat a tub of spumoni ice cream for dessert. (Which reminds me: why is it so hard to find spumoni ice cream in supermarkets these days? Where did all this go? Material for a future article, perhaps.)

But back to the cake. Chop enough rhubarb to fill 3 cups with half-inch squares (more or less). Next, cut enough strawberries into quarters to fill 1 cup. (I used more rhubarb than strawberries because strawberries release a lot of liquid while cooking, but if you’d like to try a half rhubarb half strawberry recipe, I’d love to hear about it.) Pour 1 cup sugar over the fruit with 1 teaspoon of vanilla and ½ teaspoon of ginger and set aside. Prepare strawberry cake according to directions (cake mixes usually call for water, eggs, and vegetable oil) and pour it into a greased 9×13-inch cake pan. Scoop or spoon the fruit evenly over the cake batter, then pour 1 cup of heavy whipping cream over everything. You’ll think it’s just way too much liquid to cook properly, but somehow, as it cooks, the rhubarb and strawberries form a soft, creamy layer on the bottom that’s neither raw or solid, a bit like pudding or jelly. It’s a sweet little bit of magic.

Whatever you do, don’t mix your vanilla extract with lemon extract. Yes, I did that. I wondered for a second why my vanilla was so light and clear, and then an incredibly powerful lemon scent hit me right in the face. I thought I had ruined everything. I didn’t have enough rhubarb to start again, so I rinsed everything under cold water until the rhubarb and strawberries smelled normal again. Fortunately, my mistake was undetectable in the baked cake. Phew.

Bake the cake for 60 minutes, then check how toasted the top layer is. I baked the cake for 65 minutes and it was browner on top than I would have liked. If this happens to you, don’t worry. It can always be disguised with whipped cream or ice cream, which is the ideal way to enjoy this cake anyway.

Pro tip: Don’t try to eat rhubarb raw.

Strawberry and Rhubarb Cream Cake

1 box strawberry cake mix, prepared according to directions with water, eggs and oil

3 cups chopped rhubarb

1 cup chopped strawberries

1 cup of sugar

1 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon of vanilla

½ teaspoon ginger (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare strawberry cake according to box directions and pour into greased 9×13-inch pan. Mix the rhubarb and chopped strawberries with the sugar, vanilla and ginger and pour them evenly over the cake batter. Pour heavy cream over it. Bake for 60 to 70 minutes.