let them eat cake!!

There is a website called The Rhubarb Compendium. People have, since 1994, devoted time and energy to extolling the virtues of rhubarb.   Whilst I think that they probably ought to have better things to do, their waxing lyrical did help me stumble upon the following recipe.  Now what, you may ask, was I doing traipsing about the internet looking up rhubarb, especially given my recent comments about TRC's authors?  Well, simple really - our rhubarb plant was growing like the muscles of a Cold War-era olympian, and I needed to find a way to use some (other than stewed, which gets a bit boring).  So, without further ado, let them eat cake! 

Rhubarb Ginger Cake

180 g butter, at room temp

1 cup brown sugar, tightly packed

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

1/2 cup plain flour

1 tbsp cinnamon

300 g sour cream

3 - 5 cups rhubarb, chopped into 1cm pieces

150 g crystallised ginger, roughly chopped

For the topping

1/3 cup self-raising flour

40 g butter, chilled

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp nuts (almonds, macadamias, pecans, whatever)

extra ginger, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC.  Grease and line 22 cm springform cake tin. 
2. Beat butter and sugar until light and creamy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
3. Mix flours and cinnamon together.  Sift half over cake mixture.  Add half sour cream.  Sift remaining flour.  Add remaining sour cream.  Gently stir until combined. 
4. Fold through rhubarb and ginger.  Spoon into tin. 
5. Place topping flour in bowl.  Rub butter into flour with fingertips. 
6. Stir through remaining topping ingredients and sprinkle mixture over top of cake. 
7. Bake for about an hour and a half - check it after an hour or so, and just keep going until skewer or knife blade come out clean.  Stand for ten minutes before removing from tin and leaving on cake rack to cool. 
8. Serve with yoghurt or thick cream. 

NB: Apparantly Marie Antoinette actually said 'Let them eat brioche', rather than the infamous 'let them eat cake', but for my purposes I'm invoking some poetic license.  :)