By The Urban Nanna

We grow rhubarb in large pots at our small suburban rental property, and while we definitely get a harvest from it each year, it’s usually quite small and sporadic. Not enough for jamming, but the perfect amount for baking.

This recipe makes use of 3-4 little homegrown stems, but would probably equal one of those large stem you find at greengrocers. To bulk out the fruit layer of this cake, we used a couple of apples that were looking a bit second-hand (we just chopped out the bruised bits. The rest of the flesh was super sweet as the apples were old – perfect for baking!), and then added the juice of a wibbly blood orange we found in the back of the fridge.

The mixture of sweet, tart and aromatic flavours from these three fruits together was really yummy, but the beauty of this recipe is that you can use straight-up rhubarb, or apple, or pear, or peaches, or berries, or a combo of any of these sorts of fruits! Just aim for a rough 3-4 cups of fresh fruit which will give you around 2 cups of cooked fruit mixture.

But if you have less, just make do with less! This is a seriously forgiving, ‘use it up’ kind of cake. 🙂

‘Use it up’ fruit teacake

Makes 2 small loaf cakes, or one bundt/ring cake

Ingredients:

• Butter, to grease
• Rhubarb (around 250g) trimmed, washed, cut into 5cm lengths
• 1-2 apples, peeled & chopped
• 1 blood orange
• 1 cup white sugar
• 200g butter, at room temperature
• 1tsp vanilla essence (optional)
• 3 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
• 1 cup homemade/pot-set yoghurt
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2tsp ground cinnamon
• 1tsp ground dried citrus zest*

Method:

1. Preheat oven. 180C fan forced, 200C convection
2. Grease & line your tin/s with baking paper
3. Combine rhubarb, apple and 1/4 cup of the sugar in baking dish. Halve and squeeze blood orange over fruit. Add squished halves as well. Cook in oven for 20 minutes or until tender. Set aside to cool then remove orange peels.
4. Beat butter, remaining sugar and vanilla in a bowl (or food processor) until pale and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each one until well combined.
5. Stir in flour, yoghurt and milk until well combined.
6. Spoon half the mixture evenly in baking pan. Layer with fruit mixture. Spoon over remaining mixture and smooth surface.
7. Combine brown sugar, cinnamon and citrus powder in a bowl. Sprinkle cake with mixture.

8. Bake in oven for 40-45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from oven. Set aside for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

*We have homemade citrus dust coming out the wazoo, as we peel & dry any zest from fruit we make cordial with. It’s great stuff, but not a necessity for this recipe. You could add some flaked almonds instead, or just stick with the brown sugar and cinnamon.