This is an old family recipe (so old, in fact, that the recipes reads: 1 egg, 2 if small (I guess it depends on what the chickens laid that day!), and also calls for sour milk (for which I have substituted buttermilk with terrific results). It’s a recipe that’s stuck around for a reason. Everyone loves this coffee-cake style rhubarb confection, even people who claim not to like rhubarb.
A quick story: If you are a rhubarb lover, be careful who you tell. I lived in a climate once that was ideal for growing rhubarb. I brought this cake to a church function and while everyone was telling me how much they liked it, I threw off the comment that I loved rhubarb and couldn’t get enough of it. Well, by the next day, I had enough of it. Apparently, it’s like zucchini — most people who grow it don’t know what to do with it all. An old man even drove up the street to my house in his mini John Deere tractor to deliver his harvest to me. Guess what? You can have too much of a good thing!
Rhubarb Cake
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups cut-up rhubarb
1 teaspoon vanilla
Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1. Cream together the margarine or butter and the sugar. Stir in the milk and egg.
2. Sift the flour, baking soda, salt and flour together. Add to the creamed mixture and stir just until mixed.
3. Add the rhubarb and the vanilla.
4. Pour into a greased, 9 x 13 inch pan.
5. Mix the brown sugar and the cinnamon together for the topping. Spread over batter in pan.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 35 minutes.