I made an upside down cake that I didn’t turn upside down. It didn’t want to come loose from the pan, and I didn’t care. Just cut pieces, dug them out of the pan, and enjoyed. It used four cups of rhubarb and 1 1/3 cups of flour. That seemed like a lot of fruit and just a little dough but I wasn’t paying enough attention. I could have doubled the fruit easily. It vanished into the dough and gave a lovely taste, but there wasn’t nearly enough of it! Also, the flour was combined with four eggs, sugar, butter and spices. The flour was the least of what was going on. After cooking, the cake and the fruit had definitely switched places, in terms of which there seemed to be the most of. And there really was a lot of cake. So here’s what I’m going to try, based on this recipe. https://bluebirdgrainfarms.com/rhubarb-upside-down-cake/ 

2 cups of rhubarb 

1 cup of strawberries

1/2 cup of sugar + 1/4 cup of sugar (used in two different places)

1/3 cup of flour + 1 tablespoon flour — einkorn, spelt, wheat, whatever is in the pantry

A dash of nutmeg and 1/8 tsp cardamom

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp salt

4 Tbsp butter

1 egg

A dash of lemon

Set oven to 350. Then turn it down a bit more because it runs hot. Mix rhubarb, strawberries, 1/4 cup of sugar, 1 TBSP of flour, nutmeg and cardamom. 

Pour into an 8×8 casserole dish. 

Then mix 1/3 cup of flour and the powder, soda, and salt. Set aside. Mix butter and 1/2 cup of sugar till combined. Add egg and beat. Add lemon. Add dry ingredients and combine gently. Pour on top of fruit. 

Into the oven. The recipe calls for 90 minutes, a golden crust with bubbling fruit, and golden sugar mix. I don’t know. 90 minutes was too long last time. the top crust got very dark but I didn’t have that carmelized sugar either. I’ll just have to watch!

Header image, The Kitchen Maid. 1738. Jean Siméon Chardin. Painter, French, 1699 – 1779. National Gallery Art. Public domain.

Update #1. I realized as I was actually putting the recipe together, that increasing the fruit meant I had to increase the sugar for the fruit. My plan to divide all ingredients by four wasn’t quite right. Now there might be too much sugar in the fruit. Also, I had some strawberries going bad so there’s a lot of strawberry. 

Update #1. a. There wasn’t too much sugar. At sixty minutes the top crust burned a bit.

Update #2. I whipped some cream and had a bit of dessert. Verdict? Not too bad. A bit damp from the strawberries. Probably also because the rhubarb had been frozen. I’ll have to keep trying to get this right.