Rhubarb Cake

Rhubarb is such an odd fruit.  It's almost a twisted fact of nature that rhubarb is great at this time of year, just as we should be donning our suncream and sunglasses.  Then you have a spring like this one.  Days of dismal rain and almost tempted to switch on the central heating.

So rhubarb suddenly has a strange purpose.  The joy, if you like, in the drizzled disappointment of British weather!

After initial reluctance, my son loved this cake and so did I.  It lasted for 2 further days in a tin and I also froze some wedges which defrosted in the microwave beautifully.

Great served warm as a pudding with silky double cream or custard or cold as a cake.  Ok, I'm not winning any prizes on health here but I figure it's still healthier than a chocolate bar, and, cream aside, it's pretty low in fat.

Rhubarb Cake - makes 1 large cake

Ingredients

60g, 2oz Margarine
300g, 10.5oz Sugar (I used a mix of half white and half dark soft brown sugar which gave lovely little toffee flavoured flecks in the mix)
2 Eggs
300g, 10.5oz Self Raising flour (or the same amount of all purpose / plain flour with 3 tsp baking powder)
1 tsp Vanilla extract
1 tsp Mixed Spice (apple pie spice)
300g, 10.5oz Low Fat Yogurt
250g, 9oz Rhubarb cut into short lengths

Method

Preheat an oven to 160oC, 325F, Gas Mark 3.

Line a 7.5", 19cm cake tin with baking paper and grease lightly (a mild flavoured oil spray is great for this).

Cream the margarine with the sugar as best you can as there isn't much fat.  Add the eggs and beat in.  Add the spice, vanilla and the yogurt and beat together.

Add in the flour then fold in the rhubarb.

Pour into the tin and bake for approx 1hr 15mins.  Check after an hour and cover if it's browning too much.  Check with a sharp knife or skewer to see if it's done.

Allow to cool on a wire rack and serve warm or cold.  This would be great warm with custard.  Central heating from the inside thanks to Rhubarb cake!

Weetabix Cake

Weetabix cake?  Am I serious?  Well I'd been trying different ways of using cereals quite a bit recently what with rice krispies with mackerel but I'd never found a way of using them in cakes like I had with bran loaf.  Shreddies seemed promising but were a bit of a failure when I gave them a go.  Who knew Weetabix would work?

This tastes similar to my bran loaf, loads of fibre, sweet whilst being low in added sugar, dairy free fat free and lovely with a pot of tea!

Weetabix Cake

Ingredients

2 Weetabix (or own brand equivalent)
350ml, 12 fl oz Decaffeinated tea (just make with one decaf teabag)
110g, 4oz Muscovado or soft brown sugar
280g, 10oz Sultanas (golden raisins)
1 egg
225g, 8oz Self Raising Flour (or all purpose / plain flour plus 2 tsp baking powder)
1 tsp mixed spice

Method

Crush up the weetabix, mix with the sugar and dried fruit.  Soak in the tea for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 160oC.  Mix in the spice, flour and egg and pour into a greased silicone loaf tin or a greased and lined conventional loaf tin.

Bake for about 1hour 10 mins (in my oven anyway) or until a knife inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Eat warm or cool.  Keeps reasonably well despite being fat free.

Make it Thrifty

Keep an eye out for value or smart price packs of self raising flour, breakfast cereal and dried fruits.  They work just as well in this as the more expensive packs.

Chocolate Custard (low sugar)

Custard.  I never make it from scratch but I do make it from custard powder.  It occurred to me when making some custard from custard powder the other day that custard powder is simply cornflour (cornstarch) natural flavouring (vanilla) and colour (normally a natural colour like annatto).  I don't have much annatto floating around the house and there feels like something wrong about making white custard even though that's the colour it would be if not made with eggs, so my idea was to make chocolate custard.

This would be great hot with chocolate cake, poured over banana (if you want to keep on my 7 a day routine), on it's own or allowed to cool in small pots and eaten cold like blancmange.  It's pretty low sugar too with only 1 tsp added sugar per portion.  There's more sugar in a fromage frais!

Chocolate custard - Makes 2 small bowls

Ingredients

280ml, Half Pint milk
1 rounded tbsp cornflour (cornstarch)
1 tsp Cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
2 tsp Sugar

Method

Mix the cornflour with the cocoa powder and sugar with 1 tbsp of the cold milk then add the vanilla.  Heat the remaining milk in a microwave for 2 minutes or until hot.  Gradually whisk the hot milk into the cornflour mix then return to the microwave for 2-3 minutes on full power or until cooked and thick.  Keep an eye on it as it can boil up and boil over.

I would be honoured if you would consider nominating me in the Britmums BIB awards, especially the food category.

After all, who can resist delicious chocolate custard?