Rhubarb Coffee Cake

Rach-

After dinner, after I kiss my sweet babe to sleep, and while Mike cuddles into the car bed swapping 'Dream Stories' with Mr. Finn, I sneak out the back gate and do my four laps of the park. You can probably guess that while I pretend that this is for exercise, it's delicious to be alone - without my busy little sidekick, my sous chef -no it's just me and the mountains. This evening, on my way back into the yard, I found that my seeds had sprouted - tiny pea sprouts and delicate little Swiss chard leaves that I am already dreaming of devouring.

Once again, almost eerily, our ovens are baking in unison. This weekend I harvested my first rhubarb of the season; while you squared yours up I went the coffee cake route. This was a nice friendly cake - moist, with a lovely sugary topping. I merged a few different recipes to come up with this one, which I will be making, along with your squares, all spring and summer long.

First make your topping.

Combine:
2 T melted butter
1/3 brown sugar
1/4 flour
1 tsp cinnamon

Then make your cake.

First chop 2 cups of rhubarb. I sprinkled the rhubarb with 2 T sugar and then put the lot into the microwave for 2 minutes - next time I'm skipping this step, but I thought that the rhubarb looked a bit green.

Cream:
1/3 cup butter (or you could sub canola oil) with 3/4 cup brown sugar
Add:
2 eggs and 1 tsp vanilla

Add the following, but don't stir until you have added all the dry ingredients (this should be done in a separate bowl, but I don't like to wash more dishes than I have to):

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Mix together and add 1 cup buttermilk, or in my case 1 T lemon juice plus milk to equal 1 cup. Fold in the rhubarb. Pour into a 9 inch springform and sprinkle/dab the topping on top. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

To Rhubarb!