Bite-Sized #1
A box of rhubarb and some Easter baking inspiration
Hello friends! I’m popping in your inbox today with the first installment of a new newsletter series: Bite-Sized! This occasional feature is for highlighting an ingredient on my mind, some recipe or reading recommendations, quick kitchen tips — basically, helpful tidbits that maybe don’t fit into my regular recipe posts. Enjoy!
A box of rhubarb
Last weekend, we drove about an hour north of the city to Lennox Farm, one of the Ontario’s few remaining forced rhubarb growers. Unlike field rhubarb, which here is harvested outdoors in late spring, forced rhubarb is grown indoors with no light during the winter. This environment forces the plants to grow long and slender stalks that remain very pink and red (light causes them to start turning green due to chlorophyll). As a result, forced rhubarb is more tender and sweet than its field counterpart, but still packs rhubarb’s signature puckery punch.
After several cold winter months — it was still snowing the week we drove up to Lennox — getting to work with this unique ingredient was a true baker’s joy. Other than its photogenic quality, rhubarb is also one of those fruits vegetables that requires cooking to be palatable for most people. I spent the week playing around with different preparations: poached, roasted, cooked on the stovetop into jam (Camilla Wynne’s, always) and compote, baked on a tart, pureed for mousse, macerated then baked into scones, set into a jelly.
I’ll be workshopping and sharing some of these recipes down the road; but in the meantime, if you have the opportunity to play with this ingredient, do it! Ingredient immersion is one of my favorite creative exercises; and the payoff is usually tasty as well.
Got a favorite rhubarb recipe? Let me know in the comments!
Easter weekend baking
Looking for a baking project or two for this holiday weekend? Here are some of my seasonal favorites from the archive.
Hot Cross Baos
My family sadly isn’t the biggest fan of traditionally spiced HCB, but they can all get behind these hot cross baos, a play on Chinese gai mei bao. They’re stuffed with a buttery coconut filling and topped with a cookie-like cross.
Almond Ricotta Loaf Cake
One of the most popular recipes from the newsletter archive! I found some ricotta on sale this week so this cake is definitely in my near future. With its plush pound cake-like crumb and crackly lemon glaze, this cake lasts beautifully for days. Perfect for having on hand for company.
Mini Cocoa Pavlovas
There’s something extra sweet about individual pavlovas! But in reality, a hefty dose of cocoa powder and a tangy sour cream whip tame the often overly saccharine nature of classic meringue. These are a hit even with the pavlova-ambivalent people in my life.
Vanilla Swirl Custard Buns
Stuffed with vanilla flavor, these gorgeous custardy swirls are my idea of a special breakfast treat. Plus they kind of resemble eggs, don’t you think?
Hi Ruth, my grandmother was from New Brunswick and she became a Mainer, so I inherited her love of rhubarb! This is not a recipe, but I stew cubes of rhubarb with a bit of sugar, a dash of water and a hefty grating of fresh ginger. It's great with plain yogurt or on a simple cake or ice cream. I'm craving it right now!
Every year I make Rhubarb crumble ice cream using this recipe for cooking the Rhubarb and making the crumble (which barely makes it into the ice cream, it's so yummy! I guess its kind of like shortbread) :https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/uk/food/recipes/a562416/rhubarb-crumble-ice-cream/
But I use a raspberry vanilla ice cream recipe from The Perfect scoop to make the ice cream base and just swap the raspberry puree for the Rhubarb puree. I give it away as a gift sometimes and it always gets rave reviews.