Strawberry and Rhubarb

Continuing the strawberry theme, I have to tell you about this strawberry-rhubarb pie! 

I've always loved the tang of fresh rhubarb and it goes really well with sweet strawberries. We are finally getting the fresh local strawberries from our local farm stand. It's been an unusually cool spring, so many things are slower in ripening than usual. So glad to be able to enjoy the superior strawberries that are grown at this Laguna farm.

One of the fun things about this pie is that the parts that make it up can be made in advance and then the pie assembled the day you plan to serve it...even right before you serve it (almost). This makes it a great dessert for a dinner party or just for a busy day. The filling can be made up to three days in advance, the crumb topping can be made two or three days ahead, and the blind baked pie crust can be made a day or two before. The filling can be kept in the fridge and the other two components can be saved in an air-tight container at room temperature.

The other great thing about this is that everyone seems to love it...even people who don't particularly love rhubarb. The sweet strawberries and the cooking mellow out the rhubarb just enough that everyone can enjoy it. It also looks pretty and special with the bright filling and the alluring crumb topping. Add to the fun by whipping some cream so that you can add a scoop when serving. Of course if this is a pie meant to impress, you can pipe whipped cream starts along the edge of the filling, too. If you do that for 4th of July in the U.S., add some fresh blueberries on each whipped cream star and you have the national colors.

Do try this delicious pie! It makes me smile when I think of it...and eat it.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie with Streusel Topping

Serves 8

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling 
Makes enough for one shallow 8-inch pie

Ingredients:
3 cups rhubarb, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces
 2 3/4 cups strawberries, hulled and chopped or sliced
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon butter or margarine

Directions:
Combine all of the ingredients in a heavy bottomed pot.
Cook over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly so that it doesn't scorch on the bottom of the pot.
Simmer for another 5-10 minutes until rhubarb is soft and filling has thickened.
Cool and use right away, or put into a covered container and store in the fridge for up to 3 days. Bring slowly to room temperature before using in the pie.

Blind Baked Pie Crust

Use your favorite recipe for a single crust pie, or do as I do and use a single crust from a refrigerated pie crust. I like Pillsbury ReadyCrust.

On a floured surface roll the pie out (if needed) to fit an 8-inch pie tin. Transfer the crust to the tin by draping it over your rolling pin. Fit the crust into the pie tin and crimp the edges, trimming excess crust as needed. Cut a piece of parchment paper or foil to fit the inside of the pie tin and place it loosely over the prepared crust. Fill with pie weights, or do as I do and fill it with dried lentils. Save the lentils to use the next time you need pie weights. They are very inexpensive and sit close enough to each other to do a great job of keeping the crust from getting over bubbly. Bake in a preheated 435 degree F oven for 8-10 minutes, until light golden brown. Remove from the oven and let the lentils cool before removing them carefully and either discarding them or saving them for next time. If the crust still seems a bit raw, put it back in the oven for another minute, then cool crust in pie tin on a wire rack.

Streusel

1/4 pound, 1 stick, 4 oz, 8 tablespoons butter or margarine, very cold
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup old fashioned oats

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment,

In a large bowl mix together the flour and brown sugar. Cut in the butter until mixture forms clumps.

Put streusel on the baking sheet and break up the clumps a bit so none are bigger than bite sized. Bake in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes. Streusel should be medium to dark brown but not burnt. Remove baking sheet to a wire rack and let streusel cool .

Making the Pie

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
Put the pie filling, at room temperature, in the blind baked, cooled, pie shell. Level with an offset spatula. Liberally sprinkle the streusel over the filling. Bake the pie in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, or until the filling is bubbling. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Serve at room temperature or cold. Store leftovers, if any, at room temperature or in the fridge.

Strawberry Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

Since it's late spring, you can count on posts about the nascent garden and others about using the berries and other fruits of the season. I feel so fortunate to live where we can get locally grown, amazing, juicy, ripe, fresh strawberries, lovely, sweet dark cherries from California, and other spring fruits.

 

Today's post is about a simple but delicious upside down cake made with fresh strawberries and rhubarb. I just love that combination of fruits! The fruit pieces are topped for baking with a tender sponge cake which soaks up the juices that the fruits release as they bake. I made mine in a 10-inch cast iron skillet, so the cake was fairly thin, but if you make it in a cake pan (especially an 8-inch pan, the cake will be thicker, but there will be a bit less fruit. The baking time is fairly short (20-25 minutes), too, so you can put it together and bake it in about an hour or a little less.

Before I baked this treat, I looked at a lot of upside down cake recipes and didn't really see one that looked like what I wanted, so I then looked at recipes for Victoria Sponge, a British favorite. I was interested to see that many of them used self-rising flour. If you do that, you can make a very straight forward cake using equal weights of soft butter (or margarine), granulated sugar, and self-rising flour, plus eggs. Vanilla can be added, too, or citrus peel if you like, but this time I went with just those four ingredients for the sponge part. I ended up using half of the recipe for Victoria Sponge Cake in a wonderful blog, The Baking Explorer. It really gives the history of the classic Victoria Sponge Cake with jam and cream, topped with a sprinkle of icing sugar (confectioners sugar), plus answers lots of questions you may have and gives variations. Do check it out! HERE Kat writes a really good baking blog.

For the fruit part I used one long stalk of rhubarb plus about a half-pint of strawberries. For the topping (which goes into the pan first), I decided on 4 oz. of margarine, (but use butter if you can), 1/4 cup granulated sugar, plus 1 tablespoon light corn syrup, plus the fresh fruit.

This made a wonderful cake! The cake had a nice crumb and was tender and moist. The fruit juices soaked into the cake along with the butter/sugar topping and it looked pretty since I arranged the fruit pieces in a pattern. With a small scoop of vanilla soy 'ice cream' it made the perfect finish to a lovely lunch with friends. 

Strawberry Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

recipe by Elle - sponge recipe from The Baking Explorer

Serves 8

Topping:

4 oz. butter or margarine, melted 
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1 long stalk fresh rhubarb, ends trimmed, cut into 1-2-inch pieces
1/2 pint fresh strawberries, hulled and cut in half (or sliced if very large)

Cake:

8 tablespoons or 107 oz. butter or margarine, soft 
107 oz. (about 3/4 cup) granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
107 oz. (about 1 cup) self-rising flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (optional)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter or grease a 8 or 9-inch cake pan, line the bottom with parchment and butter it lightly OR use a seasoned cast iron skillet as is.

Place the melted butter, 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon corn syrup in the bottom of the pan and stir gently to combine. Place the cut fruit pieces in a nice arrangement on top of the butter mixture. Set aside.

In a large bowl combine the butter and sugar and beat until light in color and fluffy, 3-5 minutes. This can be done by hand, with a hand held or stand electric mixer or in a food processor. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until fully incorporated. Scrape beaters (or spoon) and bowl often. Add the flour (and vanilla if using) and beat gently/on low, just until incorporated. If you beat too much you might make the cake tough.

Dollop the batter over the arranged fruit in the pan and use a small offset spatula or the back of a large spoon to smooth the batter into an even layer.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, turning 1/4 turn about half way through the baking time, until golden brown. Center will spring back if lightly depressed with a finger. Sides of cake may be starting to pull away from the pan. As you can see in the photo below, because I used a wide skillet, the batter barely covered the fruit in some places.

Let sit about 2-3 minutes on a wire rack, then cover pan with serving plate and, carefully, turn plate side down. Let the pan sit over the plate a minute, then remove the pan. If any of the fruit stuck to the pan, use a small spatula to scrape it off the pan and return it to the fruit pattern. Serve warm or let cool to room temperature to serve.

Rhubarb Adds Zing To This Crostata

 We're at the beginning of berry season, with local, divine strawberries easily available and the first of the blackberry types due locally in a couple of weeks.

When strawberries are so plentiful and ripe, I love to make a strawberry-rhubarb pie or crostata. You don't need a lot of rhubarb to add a nice zing to the filling. Yesterday morning I made a crostata (a rustic pie made by rolling out a circle of dough larger than the diameter of the pie. Once filled, the extra pastry gets folded over the filling) with a pint of strawberries and one long stalk of rhubarb. I cut all the fruit in a large dice. It only made four servings, but that was just right since Sweetie is still watching his calories and losing weight. We each had a serving for breakfast yesterday while it was warm, and ate the other two servings today for breakfast, warmed slightly in the microwave.

Use your favorite pastry for this. I used Pillsbury ReadyCrust from the refrigerator section of the market. If you look at the flaky crust in this photo you'll understand why I often use this ready made pie dough instead of making my own. Quick, easy and wonderful flaky pie crust...what's not to like? I baked it on a pizza pan but you can use a cookie sheet or similar pan. I like to use a pan without sides because I think the crust browns better all over that way.

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crostata

Elle's recipe

1 pint fresh strawberries, washed, drained, hulled and cut into large dice
1-2 stalks fresh rhubarb, washed, ends trimmed, cut into smaller dice (about 1/4-inch)
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon (less if freshly grated) nutmeg

1/2 box Pillsbury ReadyCrust or any pie dough for 1 crust pie
sanding sugar (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Put the rack in the middle or lower-middle part of the oven.

In a large bowl, thoroughly but gently mix the strawberries, rhubarb, flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt and nutmeg.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to an 11 to 12-inch diameter circle. Transfer to a sheet pan, pizza pan, cookie sheet or similar flat metal pan.

Mound the contents of the bowl in the middle of the dough circle. Spread out to a single layer, making sure that there is at least an inch of uncovered dough at the outer edges. Fold the uncovered dough up and over the fruit mixture. If you have a smaller quantity of filling, there will be more pastry over the filling (as happened with my crostata); if you have more filling, the pastry over the filling will not cover as much of the filling. It's all good!

Optional: Brush the pastry lightly with water using a pastry brush and sprinkle with sanding sugar.

Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until filling is bubbly and crust has browned. Remove pan to a wire rack to cook for at least 10 minutes, then cut in portions and serve.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie A Different Way

I love Strawberry Rhubarb pie. There is something magical about the combination of the sweet, sweet strawberries and the very tart rhubarb. I've made this pie many times, usually with a top and bottom crust.

This time I decided to only have a bottom crust and to do a streusel topping. I used the streusel recipe from the Fannie Farmer Cookbook by Marion Cunningham. It was early last week when a good friend gave me freshly cut rhubarb from her garden and when we purchased three pints of local, just picked strawberries at the farm stand. In the early evening I started cutting up the berries and rhubarb and realized that Sweetie, who had had gum surgery that afternoon, wouldn't be able to enjoy the pie (he healed well and is doing just fine).

Since Sweetie really loves pie I decided to figure out a way to make the pie later in the week. The problem was that I had already prepped the fruit and it would likely spoil if I waited. Normally I put the unbaked crust in the pie pan, put in the uncooked filling, top it with the second crust, seal the edges and flute it, cut a few vents in the top and bake the pie. This time I would need to make the pie a different way. A search of the Internet gave me the solution: cook the filling and use it later. That worked really well. I am indebted to the blogger on Bewitchin Kitchen for this cooked pie filling. You can find her post here.

We had guests on Friday from Hawaii and on Saturday I was getting ready for guests from Australia, but on Sunday morning after the local fire station pancake breakfast I was finally able to make the pie. I only made one error...I used a pie pan for a deep dish pie and only had filling for a standard depth pie. I had already blind baked the crust in the deep dish pie pan before I realized that. The solution I came up with was to put in the filling, top it with already baked streusel, bake it at 350 degrees F just long enough to finish cooking the crust and to heat up the filling, then use a sharp knife to cut the crust on the side, using the nice crisp edges to edge the pie at filling level. It looked a little bit weird, but it tasted just fine, so no one seemed to mind. When you make it, remember to do the pie shell in a shallow pie pan (unless you have doubled the filling recipe).

No only does this pie taste incredible, but the filling is really pretty. Expect raves. Use the freshest berries and rhubarb available. Because there is still some tartness to the filling, you could put a puff of freshly whipped cream on the side of each slice to tone it down...and that looks pretty, too. Alternately you could increase the sugar in the filling recipe. This is a full flavored filling. If you don't care for the flavor of rhubarb (I know some folks don't), just use more strawberries!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling 
Makes enough for one shallow 8-inch pie

Ingredients:
3 cups rhubarb, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces
 2 3/4 cups strawberries, hulled and chopped or sliced
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon butter or margarine

Directions:
Combine all of the ingredients in a heavy bottomed pot.
Cook over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly so that it doesn't scorch on the bottom of the pot.
Simmer for another 5-10 minutes until rhubarb is soft and filling has thickened.
Cool and use right away, or put into a covered container and store in the fridge for up to 3 days. Bring slowly to room temperature before using in the pie.

Blind Baked Pie Crust

Use your favorite recipe for a single crust pie, or do as I do and use a single crust from a refrigerated pie crust. I like Pillsbury ReadyCrust.

On a floured surface roll the pie out (if needed) to fit an 8-inch pie tin. Transfer the crust to the tin by draping it over your rolling pin. Fit the crust into the pie tin and crimp the edges, trimming excess crust as needed. Cut a piece of parchment paper or foil to fit the inside of the pie tin and place it loosely over the prepared crust. Fill with pie weights, or do as I do and fill it with dried lentils. Save the lentils to use the next time you need pie weights. They are very inexpensive and sit close enough to each other to do a great job of keeping the crust from getting over bubbly. Bake in a preheated 435 degree F oven for 8-10 minutes, until light golden brown. Remove from the oven and let the lentils cool before removing them carefully and either discarding them or saving them for next time. If the crust still seems a bit raw, put it back in the oven for another minute, then cool crust in pie tin on a wire rack.

Streusel

1/4 pound, 1 stick, 4 oz, 8 tablespoons butter or margarine, very cold
1 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup old fashioned oats

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment,

In a large bowl mix together the flour and brown sugar. Cut in the butter until mixture forms clumps.

Put streusel on the baking sheet and break up the clumps a bit so none are bigger than bite sized. Bake in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes. Streusel should be medium to dark brown but not burnt. Remove baking sheet to a wire rack and let streusel cool .

Making the Pie

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. 
Put the pie filling, at room temperature, in the blind baked, cooled, pie shell. Level with an offset spatula. Liberally sprinkle the streusel over the filling. Bake the pie in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, or until the filling is bubbling. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

Serve at room temperature or cold. Store leftovers, if any, at room temperature or in the fridge.

Spring Warmth with Strawberries and Rhubarb

It is truly spring. Usually this is a non-event as spring arrives in Northern California most years in February or March, but this year our spring has been more like the ones I remember from my childhood in Virginia. The nights stayed very cool and we had significant rain right up into May. So this year April showers really did bring May flowers. Many of my flowers are just now starting to bloom and the cool weather has keep the roses going with the flowers staying on the shrubs longer while new buds begin to form.

Our little lambs are getting bigger. Earlier in the week one of the younger set got his head stuck in the fence and tonight one of the older set became stuck. Since he has actual horns it was tougher to get him back through, but Sweetie did it and then the little fellow ran away to his mom. The photo of lambs on this post is actually from the flock of a friend...her lambs are white while 'mine' are black. They aren't really mine since they belong to our neighbors, but since they are in our pasture and we see them every day and give them water and sometimes some hay, I feel a little like they are ours, too.

One of the treats of spring is the coming of strawberry season. It started really late this year, too. Finally we are getting some warm days, so the strawberries at our local farm stand are plentiful, juicy, fragrant and all together wonderful. Often we just eat them right from the container, but sometimes I feel like baking using them.

A great pairing with strawberries is rhubarb. It sort of looks like red celery and it is pretty tart, but that tartness is magic combined with strawberry sweetness. I put them together in a tart for a family dinner on Friday. If you have puff pastry in the freezer, plus the usual baking staples and some sliced and ground almonds and some citrus, you can put this together in no time and bake an impressive dessert...it's delicious, too.

I actually combined two recipes for this. A few pages further into Annie Rigg's Summer Berries Autumn Fruits cookbook, there is a recipe for a strawberry-rhubarb compote over brown sugar meringues, so I took the cooking method for the compote and used it for the tart fruit. It worked really well and I was left with enough syrup to boil down for a drizzle over the served slices of tart. The almond and orange flavors go so well with the sweet-tart strawberry rhubarb combo. The crust adds crispness and flakiness. There were actually a couple of pieces left over, so Sweetie and I had them for breakfast the next morning...heaven!

Strawberry Rhubarb Almond Tart
From Summer Berries Autumn Fruits by Annie Rigg
Serves 6-8

1-2 slim-stemmed rhubarb stalk(s)
1 cup granulated sugar
three strips orange peel (each about 1/2 " X 2 ")
1/2 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise or
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 pint fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
1 x 14 oz package store-bought puff pastry
(I used 1 of 2 sheets in a Pepperidge Farm frozen puff pastry box, thawed)
2 tablespoons milk or soy milk
1 medium egg yolk, lightly beaten
2 rounded tablespoons sliced almonds

For the frangipane
2/3 cup ground almonds
3 tablespoons softened non-dairy butter or real butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 medium egg
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Rinse the rhubarb under cold running water and trim the ends. Cut each stem into lengths of about 1 1/2 inches. Put the sugar, orange peel and vanilla in a saute pan and add 3/4 cup cold water. Bring slowly to a boil to dissolve the sugar. Add the rhubarb and cook over low heat 2-3 minutes or until rhubarb is softened. Remove from heat. Add the strawberries, stir and let sit while you prepare the tart shell.

Lightly dust the work surface with flour and roll out the pastry into an oval or rectangle until pastry is about 1/16th-inch thick. Use a large knife to trim and neaten the edges. Carefully slide the pastry onto a large parchment-lined baking sheet, brush the milk or soy milk around the edges of the pastry, and crimp and fold over to create a border. Chill in the fridge for 20 minutes while you make the frangipane.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Put all the frangipane ingredient in a mixing bowl and beat well until smooth.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and spread the frangipane over the pastry, leaving a 1/2 inch border all the way around as it will spread slightly during cooking. Drain the cooled rhubarb and strawberries from the syrup and scatter the rhubarb and strawberries evenly over the tart. Brush the edges of the tart with the beaten yolk and scatter the tart with the sliced almonds.

Bake on the middle rack of the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F and cook for another 20-25 minutes. The frangipane will be golden, the pastry crust crisp, and the fruit tender.

Best served warm on the day it is made. You can take the syrup remaining after the fruit is removed and, over low heat, reduce it to a thick syrup for garnishing the tart slices.

More Rhubarb

We have been having some rain and cool weather for most of this month so it has been enjoyable to bake things. The cooler weather has also allowed my tulips to stay around much longer than usual, so I have been able to enjoy first some yellow and lavendar ones, then pink and red ones and now the later yellow ones while still having the pink ones looking good.

The only downside is that the ground has stayed cool, too. I did plant out some zucchini squash plants that had gotten too big to stay indoors. They seem to be OK but I don't expect much growth from them for a while until it warms up some. I have dozens and dozens of tomato seedlings so I hope it warms up soon so they can get planted, too.

  My recently planted rhubarb plant looks pathetic but a friend has been generous with stalks of her gorgeous rhubarb so I've been enjoying this plant that always reminds me of spring.


Although rhubarb cut up and cooked with a little sugar is a fine thing all by itself, it also lends itself to a very Irish dish, the rhubarb crumble. I suspect that this is also a very British dish and who knows how many places enjoy it for 'pud'. The lovely thing about it is that it is quick and simple and delicious, too.

Rhubarb Crumble for 4-6

3-4 stalks fresh rhubarb, cleaned and sliced
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup sugar or to taste
4 tablespoons all-purpose or whole wheat flour
4 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons rolled oats
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
4 tablespoons butter

Place the rhubarb and water, plus sugar as needed, into a shallow, wide ovenproof pan...I use our cast iron skillet. Cover and cook the rhubarb for 20 minutes at medium heat. While rhubarb is cooking, preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

When the rhubarb has cooked for about 10 minutes, make the crumble: In a medium bowl combine the flour, brown sugar, oats, salt and nutmeg. Work in the cold butter with your fingertips or use a pastry blender or two knives, until the mixture is crumbly and clumpy.

Uncover the pan and crumble that mixture evenly over the hot fruit. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until crumbs are golden brown. Serve while still warm. Good with a garnish of whipped cream.