Here’s a gorgeous, seasonal recipe from Thyme Cookery School.
It’s that hungry gap time of year so every bit of produce in the garden is precious, we grow our own rhubarb, which is a real challenge in a garden prone to waterlogging. We are doing a little forcing for the first time this year, but also source from the Yorkshire triangle, simply because it is such good quality and cookery school guests particularly enjoy learning about the history of that extraordinary area. We use Shipton Mill’s organic spelt flours which are ground not far from us and are absolutely second to none. Also, we are now using unrefined sugars in all our baking, the flavours are so much better, locking that caramel flavour in rather than refining it out, and much healthier – which in a cake is always reassuring!!
Ingredients
85g unsalted butter, plus more for tin
85g unrefined soft light brown sugar
2 large eggs, beaten
35g wholemeal spelt flour
15g plain flour, sieved
50g ground almonds
½ tsp baking powder
150g rhubarb, diced,
3 tbsp unrefined demarara sugar
20g flaked almonds
Unrefined golden icing sugar to dust
Method
- Preheat the oven to 170˚. Butter and baseline a 17cm springform cake tin.
- Beat the butter and soft light brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition. If the mixture starts to curdle, add 1 tbsp of spelt flour. Fold in the rest of the flours, the ground almonds and baking powder.
- Toss the rhubarb with the demerara sugar, fold through the batter and spoon into the prepared tin. Bake for 20 minutes. Sprinkle on the flaked almonds and continue to cook for 10-15 minutes. The cake is ready when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.
- Leave to cool in the tin. Remove and dust with icing sugar before serving.
