COOKBOOKS GALORE

 Bought some 'Wonky' rhubarb from Morrisons and decided to make this for a family get together last weekend. It's a French recipe, usually for a lemon cake, but I decided to add rhubarb. The recipe uses a yoghurt pot as a measure. Very easy to make. you need a 125g yoghurt pot So:  1pot natural yoghurt, 3 pots sugar, 3 pots flour, 1 tspn baking powder, 3/4 pot vegetable oil, 1/4 pot milk, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 2 eggs, 250g rhubarb Preheat oven 200C/gas6                        Grease and flour a 20cm cake tin. Put all the ingredients except the rhubarb into a bowl and beat together. Chop the rhubarb into chunks and add to the mixture. Mix in with a spatula. Bake for 30-35 mins till golden. It has a lovely moist crumb, and a good contrast between the fruit and the sponge. It makes a good cake with a cuppa or a dessert with cream or ice cream. I've made it with apple, but plums or pears would be good too.

 Last year I was given a rhubarb plant from a local group which shares excess plants. I didn't cut it even though I desperately wanted to, as I love rhubarb! I was told it would make it stronger for this year! It's doing well again, so this is the first recipe I've made using it, and it's a very simple one.You use a yoghurt pot as a measure. Yoghurt pot recipes are very popular in France. You need: 250g rhubarb cut into chunks, 1 pot of yoghurt, 3 pots of caster sugar, 3 pots of sr flour, 1 tspn baking powder, 3/4 pot vegetable oil, 2 eggs, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 1/4 pot of milk Preheat oven 200C/gas 6 Grease and base line a 20cm cake tin. In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients except the rhubarb. Beat together. Add the rhubarb and mix in with a spatula. Spoon into the cake tin. Bake for 30 mins till golden. A lovely, simple cake. It has a moist crumb and is very tasty. You could add a mix of 2tbspn sugar and 1/2 tspn cinnamon  as a topping. A great way to use up ...

Bought some 'Wonky' rhubarb from Morrisons and decided to make this for a family get together last weekend. It's a French recipe and uses a yoghurt pot as a measure. Very easy to make. you need a 125g yoghurt pot So:  1pot natural yoghurt, 3 pots sugar, 3 pots flour, 1 tspn baking powder, 3/4 pot vegetable oil, 1/4 pot milk, 1 tspn vanilla extract, 2 eggs, 250g rhubarb Preheat oven 200C/gas6                        Grease and flour a 20cm cake tin. Put all the ingredients except the rhubarb into a bowl and beat together. Chop the rhubarb into chunks and add to the mixture. Mix in with a spatula. Bake for 30-35 mins till golden. It has a lovely moist crumb, and a good contrast between the fruit and the sponge. It makes a good cake with a cuppa or a dessert with cream or ice cream. I've made it with apple, but plums or pears would be good too.

I love rhubarb, but sadly can't seem to find any in my local supermarkets. However, I did find some this weekend at a local market. This cake is so easy to make, and it's a change from the usual rhubarb crumble or tart. 150g rhubarb, 70g Greek yoghurt, 60g ground almonds, 190g sr flour, 2 eggs, 130g margarine or butter and 130g caster sugar. Preheat oven 180C/gas4           Grease and line a 20cm cake tin Put all the ingredients in a food processor and blitz till smooth. Wash and chop the rhubarb into chunks, then add to the batter with a spatula. Bake for 35-40 mins till golden and firm. A simple cake with a soft, moist texture. Good contrast between the cake and the tart rhubarb. It makes a good dessert too with some cream or vanilla ice cream.

I made these a while ago when there was rhubarb in my local market. As well as rhubarb and meringue, there's an almond cream in the tartlets. I cheated and bought a block of short crust pastry, but of course you can make it yourself. You need: 320g shortcrust pastry, 400g rhubarb and 80g caster sugar, 125g ground almonds, 80g butter, 125g caster sugar and 3eggs, 3 egg whites and 75g caster sugar. Preheat oven 180C           You need a 12 hole bun or tartlet tin. Peel and chop the rhubarb then cover it with the 80g caster sugar and leave for 1 hour. Roll out the pastry and use a cutter to cut out circles to fit your tin. Line these with baking beans and bake for 10 mins; take the beans out and bake for a further 5 mins. Take tin out of the oven and let the tartlet cases cool. Cream : beat the butter and 125g caster sugar together. Add the eggs one at a time, then the ground almonds - beat the mixture well. Turn the oven down to 120C. Meringue: beat...

I love rhubarb, and decided to make something different with it for my friends when they came for tea. I've recently bought a new 12 hole fluted tartlet tin, so decided to use this and to top the tartlets with meringue. I have a recipe with fruit, which has a creamy almond filling, so this would make them a bit different. 250g shortcrust pastry [your own recipe or bought] 400g rhubarb 80g caster sugar 125g ground almonds 80g soft butter 125g caster sugar 2 eggs beaten For the meringue 3 egg whites 75g caster sugar Preheat oven 180C Peel the rhubarb and cut into pieces. Put it into a bowl covered with the 80g caster sugar and leave for an hour. Roll the pastry out thinly and line the tartlet tin. Using baking beans, bake blind for 10 mins. Take the beans out and cook for a further 5 min. Remove the pastry cases from the tin and put on a wire rack to cool. Beat the butter with the caster sugar; add the eggs then the ground almonds and ...

This is another variation on the French yoghurt cake, but as I have rhubarb to use I thought it would be a change from a crumble or meringue. It's very easy  - you use the yoghurt pot as a measure. 250g rhubarb cut into smallish pieces plus  1 tspn cinnamon [or more if you like it] 1 small pot natural yoghurt [the pot is then the measure] 3 pots caster sugar 3 pots plain flour 3/4 pot of veg oil [I used sunflower] 1/4 pot milk 2 eggs 2 tspn baking powder pinch salt Preheat oven 200C/gas6 Grease and base line a 20cm round tin. Put all the ingredients except the rhubarb into a bowl and beat together. When it's all mixed, add the rhubarb and stir in. Spoon into the tin and bake for 30 mins till golden. Nice moist cake, so easy and quick to make. The rhubarb gives it a nice texture and some sharpness. I like these yoghurt cakes as they're simple to make and you can use so many different ingredients. You can change the yoghurt for a ...

  This is the second easy rhubarb recipe I made with my sil's rhubarb. It's just a variation on the yoghurt cake all French families seem to make. You use the yoghurt pot as a measure.  1 small pot natural yoghurt - use this pot to measure 3 pots of caster sugar, 3 pots of sr flour, 3/4 pot of sunflower oil,  1/4 pot milk 2 eggs 1 tspn baking powder 1 tspn vanilla extract pinch salt 250g rhubarb cut into chunks Preheat oven 200C/gas6 Grease and base line a 20cm round cake tin. Beat all the ingredients together except the rhubarb, then stir the chunks in. Spoon into the tin and bake for 30 mins till golden. A good moist cake, not too sweet. Love the texture of the rhubarb. A simple cake to have with a cuppa, or as a dessert with some crème fraiche or vanilla ice cream. Am away for a week, so next week's post will be later than usual.

My sil came for the day and brought a bundle of rhubarb. It's one of our favourite things to eat, so I decided to make a couple of easy recipes with it. The first was a simple rhubarb tart with a meringue topping, a change from a pie or a crumble. I used a pack of bought shortcrust pastry, which made it even quicker to make, but of course you can make your own. 1 pack shortcrust pastry 600g rhubarb 2 tbspn granulated sugar 3 egg whites 175g caster sugar pinch salt 1 tspn lemon juice Preheat oven 180C/gas4 Roll out the pastry to fit a 23cm tart tin. Prick the pastry with a fork. . Trim the rhubarb and cut into 3cm chunks, then spread it over the pastry. Sprinkle the tbpsns of sugar over. Bake for about 25mins. While it's cooking, whip the egg whites with the salt into stiff peaks. Gradually add the sugar and the lemon juice and carry on beating. Take the tart out of the oven and top with the meringue, then put it back in the oven for about ...

A quick post as I'm off to my daughter in London till Sunday. I made these muffins to use up the last sticks of rhubarb in the garden. I usually use oil instead of butter, but thought I'd give these a try. The recipe is from a tatty book I picked up in a charity shop, called '100 Muffins' , but it doesn't have the writer's name in it.  150g caster sugar 280g plain flour 21/2 tspns baking powder 1 tspn cinnamon 1/2 tspn bicarb. 1/2 tpsn salt 250ml creme fraiche  110g melted butter 2 eggs 1 tspn vanilla 150g diced rhubarb Topping: 3 tbspn caster sugar 1/2 tspn cinnamon Preheat oven 200C/gas6             Grease a 12 hole muffin tin. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon, salt and bicarb together in a bowl. In another bowl whisk together the creme fraiche, eggs, butter and vanilla to a smooth batter. Stir the wet mixture into the dry one, but don't over mix. Stir in the rhubarb.  Spoon the batter into the muffin tin...

Off on holiday to France tomorrow, so thought I'd post a French recipe. Will be back posting in 2 weeks. At the weekend I picked just enough rhubarb to make some kind of dessert. Wanted something different, and browsing through some old French cookery magazines, I found a recipe for a meringue tart with a difference, as it has a custard layer on the rhubarb before you add the meringue topping. Sounded like a great idea. I love rhubarb, but we haven't a very big garden so I have to make good use of what we can grow! It uses a 27cm tart tin, which is quite big. So, you need: 350g of shortcrust pastry 1 kg rhubarb 1 egg and 2 yolks 20cl of cream 1 tbspn vanilla sugar 150 g of caster sugar (50g for marinating the rhubarb and about 100g or a bit less in the custard] 1 tbspn cornflour For the  meringue :  2 egg whites 50g caster sugar per egg Preheat oven 220C/gas 8 Make the pastry and chill. Cut the rhubarb stems into 2cm pieces, taking the strin...

At long last our rhubarb plants in the garden have got their act together and produced a decent amount of fruit. I made a crumble and a cake, both of which I put in the freezer, and wanted to use up the last pieces. This is my dil's favourite muffin recipe - not with rhubarb and chocolate, but she loves blueberries and raspberries. I found the addition of Greek yoghurt rather unusual, as I usually use milk. I was going to just make rhubarb muffins, then found I had some white chocolate to use up; it's a good combination. 80g butter 150g sugar 1 tspn vanilla extract 2 large eggs, beaten 100ml Greek yoghurt 225g flour + 1 tspn baking powder 400g rhubarb chopped into small pieces 150g white chocolate, chopped Preheat oven 200C/gas6 Filla 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases Beat butter and sugar together. Add the beaten eggs, vanilla extract and yoghurt and gently combine. Fold in the flour and then add the rhubarb and chocolate. Blend together thoroughly, but do...

I've posted muffin recipes several times, adapting my favourite recipe. I made a rhubarb tart yesterday, and had enough rhubarb left to make some muffins. I wanted to make something different, but having looked online and not been inspired, I decided to adapt my old faithful recipe  We love rhubarb crumble, so muffins with rhubarb and crumble sound ideal. I usually make the crumble with half oats and half flour, and I use oil instead of butter in the muffins. A healthier option! I used soft light brown sugar instead of my usual caster. For the crumble topping: 50g butter, 50g plain flour 25g porridge oats 50g demerara sugar 1 tsp ground cinnamon For the muffins: 225g self-raising flour 100g soft light brown sugar 1 medium egg, beaten 250ml milk 120ml sunflower or rapeseed oil 200g rhubarb, sliced lengthways and chopped 2 tbspn cold water 50g caster sugar icing sugar [opt] Preheat oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Line a 12-hole muffin tin wi...

Rhubarb is one of my favourite things to eat, so when I saw some lovely and pink, it made my day. We need a bit of colour in this dreary month! I didn't want to make a crumble, so thought about a cake. I'd seen this recipe ages ago on this site Taste of Home , so decided to have a go at changing the cups to grams and to make the cake. 100g rhubarb cut into small chunks 25g + 150g caster sugar 115g unsalted butter, softened 2 eggs 1 1/2 tspn vanilla essence 175g plain/all purpose flour 1 tspn baking powder 1/2 tspn salt Pinch of bicarbonate of soda 180ml buttermilk Brown sugar for the topping Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Grease and line a 2lb loaf tin. Put the rhubarb in a bowl with 25g of sugar and set aside. Cream together the butter and the rest of the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat in well. Add the vanilla essence. Sift all the dry ingredients together into a big bowl. Add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and fold into the...

The other day I found a Scandinavian cookery book in a local charity shop, and this recipe was in it. We have one lone rhubarb plant in the garden, and there was just enough ready to pick to use in this cake. I've adapted the recipe to the kind of cake I wanted, so I'm claiming it as mine now! It makes a small amount of rhubarb into a delicious dessert, tho' it's not a big cake if you have a family to feed. 2eggs 150g caster sugar 90g plain flour 1/2 tspn baking powder about 250g rhubarb 50g cold butter 1 tspn cinnamon 2 tbspn pearl sugar Preheat oven 175C/gas 3/4 Grease and line a 20cm springform tin [make sure you grease the tin well or the cake will stick like glue!] Cut the rhubarb into about 1cm pieces. Beat the eggs and sugar with a mixer till it's pale and nice and fluffy. Then fold in the flour and baking powder. Pour this batter into the tin and put the rhubarb on top, pushing it into the batter. Then cut the butter into thin slices - it ...