Rhubarb Crumble Coffee Cake

Sheesh, I've been lazy when it comes to posting lately.  My apologies if anyone noticed.  I was finishing up a lovely time in Minnesota with my family (except for the fact that it actually had the gall to snow on the first two days of May...falling into such stereotypes, Minnesota, I'm so disappointed in you...).  We are back to normal life but I have one more recipe that I made while back there (and utilizing my mom's vast selection of dishes and coordinating linens, which I will miss...).  It involves one of my favorite Springtime ingredients, rhubarb. 

Speaking of, I have a tragic story involving rhubarb coffee cake.  I've mentioned before how I was involved in 4-H (see my post on Samoas bars--and yes, I realize samoas come from girl scouts, that just was where I remembered I had put in a teaser about this event...).  Anyway, 4-H makes a big deal about entering items you worked on for exhibition at fairs.  Well, I didn't raise animals and didn't build bird houses, or sew, or make handicrafts or partake in photography.  What I did like to do was bake and so the summer I was eight, I planned to enter a Rhubarb Cake in the Hennepin County Fair with the goal of winning a blue ribbon.

One steamy June day, the time for judging arrived.  I had painstakingly prepared my cake with rhubarb harvested from my father's garden, hand crumbled the cinnamon streusel and baked the cake to perfection.  It was time to go and we were running late, as usual.  My mom loaded myself, my brother, my sister and two neighbor kids she watched into our '87 Grand Caravan (almond colored with the awesome faux wood paneling on the side, of course).  In the chaos that is loading five children into a vehicle, the cake, unfortunately, remained on the roof of the minivan.  We took off down the alley and I don't remember if I suddenly realized my lap was devoid of a potentially prize winning cake or if we heard the sound of it smashing on the cement behind us, but needless to say, there was no blue ribbon in the cards that year. 
So sad.

The recipe for that fateful cake has disappeared, but my love for rhubarb never will.  Here is a winner of a recipe (ha ha)!  Big cinnamon-y crumbs over top of vanilla cake dotted with sweet-tart pieces of rhubarb.   I made it with whole wheat flour to reduce the guilt factor.  For best results, avoid alleys and old school minivans and possibly enjoy with some vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.

Rhubarb Crumble Coffee Cake
Rhubarb Filling:
1/2 pound rhubarb, trimmed and cut into 1/2 inch pieces
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon cornstarch

Cinnamon Crumble:
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces), melted
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (can substitute all purpose flour just fine, I was just trying to be healthy)

Cake batter:
1/3 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup granulated sugar
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (again, you can substitute)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a small bowl, mix together sugar, corn starch and ground ginger from the rhubarb filling ingredients list.  Toss in rhubarb, stir to coat rhubarb in the sugar mixture and set aside.

To make cinnamon crumble, mix together in another bowl the brown and white sugar, cinnamon, ginger and salt.  Stir in melted butter and mix until thoroughly combined and sugar starts to dissolve.  Stir in flour with a spatula or wooden spoon.  It will feel like a stiff dough.  Set aside in one big mass.

In one final bowl (are you running out of dishes yet? I'm sorry, it will be worth it), stir together sour cream, eggs, vanilla extract and sugar until smooth.  Combine together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and add into wet ingredients, gently stirring just until combined.  Fold in rhubarb sugar mixture.  Pour into a greased 8x8 baking dish.  Using your fingers, break cinnamon crumble mixture into large crumbs and sprinkle evenly across top of cake batter.  Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean of wet batter (it might be a bit moist if you stick a piece of rhubarb).  Serve warm or at room temperature.  Ice cream or whipped cream garnish, optional.

Recipe Adapted from Big Crumb Coffee Cake by Smitten Kitchen

Happy Mardi Gras: King's Cake

 In honor of Mardis Gras today, we put together a King's Cake: a cinnamon roll-like cake with sugary icing and traditional Mardis Gras colors: gold (for power), green (for faith) and purple (for justice). King Cake is a New Orleans tradition served after January 6th until Mardi Gras Day. The cake has a small trinket (often a small toy baby or half of a pecan, sometimes said to represent the Christ child) inside.  The person who gets the piece of cake with the trinket gets to be "King for a Day" (and historically, gets to be in charge of providing the next cake, but that doesn't seem as fun).  

Celebrating Mardis Gras has not been much of a tradition in my house, but we thought this looked like a fun kid project (what kid doesn't love frosting and sprinkles?) and an opportunity to talk about the season of Lent, Christ's sacrifice for us and the joy of Easter to come! We skipped talking about how you get beads and so forth... : )

You may notice that the dough of the King's Cake is startlingly similar to the recipe for Challa.  You can use a half batch of Challa dough instead (and you can use either dough recipe to make homemade cinnamon rolls!).  There's also some shortcut hints at the end (like using packages of crescent rolls). 

Mardis Gras King's Cake
dough:
1 1/4 cups warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1/4 cup honey
4 eggs
2 teaspoons salt
Roughly 6  cups white unbleached flour (can substitute up to a couple cups of whole wheat flour)
small plastic toy (baby shaped) or pecan half

Filling:
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (optional)
6-8 tablespoons butter, softened

Frosting:
2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3-4 tablespoons milk
green, yellow and purple colored sugar or white sugar and food colors (just stir together white sugar and food color in a small bowl until desired color) for decorating

Directions:
In a large bowl, combine water, yeast and honey.  Allow to sit for a few minutes (3-5) or until yeast starts to bubble and looks creamy.  Beat in eggs, and melted butter.  Once thoroughly combined, stir in salt and flour, one cup at a time, until dough is thick enough to turn out onto a floured surface.  Knead, continuing to add flour as needed, until dough is smooth and elastic and no longer sticky (about five minutes).   Return to bowl, cover with a clean, damp cloth and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled in size (about 1 1/2 hours).

Meanwhile, stir together all filling ingredients except for butter.  Set aside until ready to assemble.

After dough has risen, punch down and turn out onto floured surface again.  Divide dough into two equal sized chunks and roll out on a floured surface into a big rectangle (about 9x13).  Spread half of softened butter onto each rectangle.  Then, sprinkle half of filling mixture onto each rectangle of dough (kids like to help with this part a lot).  Roll lengthwise (you want long and skinny, not short and fat), jelly-roll style until you have a long tube of dough (also at this point, you can use this to make cinnamon rolls, just use a piece of string or dental floss to cut into rounds and place in a greased baking dish).  Shape into a circle or oval, pressing ends together.  Transfer to a lightly greased cookie sheet or pizza pan, cover and allow to rise in a warm place until doubled, about 45-minutes to an hour). 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until browned on the outside. If hiding a trinket or nut in the cake, cut a small slit in the side of the baked cake (on the inside of the ring) and push the prize into the cake so that it is hidden from view.

In a small bowl, mix together powdered sugar and vanilla. Add milk gradually, stirring until smooth and pourable.  Drizzle frosting over warm cake.  Immediately sprinkle with colored sugars, alternating each color. 
 
Note: If you're looking for a real shortcut, thaw out frozen, packaged bread dough and use as above or press together crescent rolls (you'll need 12) in a circle (long, skinny points toward the middle so it ends up looking like a bunch of slices of pizza), fill and fold the points back up and over the filling, tucking the points underneath the ring.  A great step by step tutorial: http://homecooking.about.com/od/cakerecipes/ss/kingcakesbs.htm 

Cinnamon Banana Bread

Everyone has their own favorite banana bread recipe.  I wanted to add another to your list.  But hear me out, this one is healthy but still feels incredibly indulgent.  I was inspired to bathe a low fat banana bread recipe (adapted from "The Best of Cooking Light") in butter and cinnamon sugar.  The cinnamon sugar idea came from constantly making Amish Friendship Bread (aka Crack Bread--because it's so addictive!) back a few years ago.  I think this banana bread is an excellent substitute for the friendship bread and there's no starter to worry about maintaining! 


Cinnamon Banana Bread
1 cup mashed banana (about 2 medium)
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/4  teaspoon cream of tartar
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine banana, sugars, oil and eggs in a large bowl.  Beat with a mixer on medium speed until smooth.  On a sheet of waxed paper (or in another bowl, I just hate to dirty extra dishes), combine flours, cinnamon, cream of tartar and salt.  Pour into wet ingredients and stir just until combined.  Melt butter and pour about half into a loaf pan.  Spread around so that the entire surface is covered (like greasing the pan).  Pour about half of the cinnamon sugar mixture into the loaf pan and shake around until the buttered surface is covered with the sugar.  Pour batter into loaf pan and smooth out.  Pour remainder of butter over top of banana batter and sprinkle remainder of cinnamon and sugar evenly over the top.  Bake for 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Turn banana bread out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool. 

We especially like it toasted with peanut butter! 

Back to School Breakfast

Today was Silas' first day of preschool. He did do a round of "Preschool Light" last year, so there really wasn't too much apprehension (on either of our parts), but there was definitely the "back to school" feeling in our house this morning. To start him off right, I made an extra hearty breakfast (made enough for me too, it's hard work getting a four year old out the door!) and I think it did the trick!


Funky Monkey Oatmeal

1/2 cup quick oats
1 cup water
pinch of salt
large shake of cinnamon
1/2 banana, mashed (can reserve a couple slices for garnish)
1 tablespoon peanut butter (or almond butter!)
1 tablespoon vanilla flavored protein powder (optional)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
milk for serving

In a very large, microwave-safe bowl, combine oats, water, salt and cinnamon. Microwave on high for 1 1/2 - 2 minutes or until oats are thickened (making sure to watch very closely so that your oatmeal doesn't end up on the floor of your microwave from boiling over). Remove from microwave and stir in banana and peanut butter. Transfer to serving bowl (or eat from what you microwaved it in) and top with brown sugar (Silas likes visible lumps) and milk.

note: I prefer the flavor and texture of Old Fashioned rolled oats or Steel Cut oats and you are welcome to substitute, allowing extra cooking time. When I'm really on the ball and forward-thinking enough, I'll soak steel cut oats overnight (combine 1 cup steel cuts and 4 cups of water in a sauce pan, bring to a boil and allow to boil for one minute and then remove from heat, cover and let sit overnight. In the morning, bring the oats and water to a boil and cook for about 5-10 minutes, or until the water is absorbed and the oatmeal is desired tenderness).