Rhubarb Cake

I want to get better at cooking with rhubarb.  I keep reading wonderful posts about cooking with it.  Doesn’t Masala Herb’s tart sound just amazing?  Her tart not withstanding though I often find that when I cook with rhubarb the finished product doesn’t always taste quite as good as I was expecting.  I have tried savoury dishes and sweet dishes but in the end I come back to enjoying it most when its simply stewed with sugar and a touch of lemon juice.

My most recent experiment with rhubarb is a good example of what I’m talking about.  I made a Rhubarb Cake.

Sure it was nice enough but did it distinguish itself from other cakes, well no, not really.  I have to admit that I did just take a Stephanie Alexander’s fabulous banana cake recipe and simply substitute the cup of mashed banana with a cup of sweetened stewed rhubarb but I was still expecting more –  More rhubarb flavour, more interest and more tang.  The end result although lovely, moist and cakey was just that: a moist, sweet cake with pretty much no discernable rhubarb flavour.  Perhaps if I had left the rhubarb in pieces the end result would have been more exciting…

So to all you rhubarb cooks out there what am I doing wrong?  What is the secret to cooking with rhubarb?  What are the best dishes and what doesn’t work as well?

I’m sharing this recipe on The Gardener of Eden’s Thursday Kitchen Cupboard , and Greenish Thumb’s Garden to Table where you should be able to find some lovely food.