In the pink: Fresh, seasonal rhubarb heart of moist, tasty cake that gets sweet kick from streusel topping

I love rhubarb. I love the pretty pink-and-green color, I love the scent, and I love the sharp flavor of this herbaceous, perennial vegetable. I’ve gone kind of nuts for rhubarb this year — not just as a flavor but also as a concept. I recently painted my nails a luminous rhubarb pink. I have two pairs of rhubarb-red shoes and a sparkly rhubarb-hued shirt. Last month, I dyed my hair a coppery pink that kind of makes me think of rhubarb every time I look in the mirror.

Rhubarb season begins in April, so a couple weeks ago I searched for rhubarb in the grocery store to make rhubarb kuchen. Sadly, no rhubarb could be found. (It worked out all right because I made a delicious mango raspberry kuchen instead.) I mentioned the store’s tragic lack of rhubarb in my column and, lucky me, a friend stepped right up with her rhubarb bounty and gave me enough fresh rhubarb to make lots of different treats.

As I walked into the house with an armful of rhubarb like a stack off firewood, my husband looked excited.

“Can we have apple-rhubarb crumble?” asked my British husband, with a note of unmistakable longing. He loves any dessert with apple, but since rhubarb crumble is a quintessentially English dessert, he’ll allow the rhubarb to coexist with apples in this one particular instance.

I hated to dash his hopes. I was set on rhubarb cake. I’d been thinking about a recipe for rhubarb sour cream cake similar to the “rhubarb cakies” I made four years ago. I was eager to get chopping and baking. I offered him a gentle refusal, assuring him that the rhubarb cake would also be delicious. He looked dubious. (Because he’s English, “dubious” is an expression much like his many other expressions, although I have studied them all assiduously and can now detect subtle muscle movements that indicate his true feelings. He, on the other hand, never needs to detect anything in my facial expressions, because I am constantly describing for him my precise emotional state. Our marriage is a perfectly balanced yin-yang situation.)

Making the cake is a straightforward procedure. Sift the flour, sugar and spices together. Stir in the eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Fold in the rhubarb. Sprinkle the streusel on top. Bake and eat!

I have one pro tip to offer you: Don’t put the sour cream in the freezer the night before you intend to bake this cake. That’s what I did, for reasons that are entirely unclear to me now. The sour cream still had a few ice crystals when I added it to the batter, but it didn’t seem to make a difference in the outcome.

On that note, I must digress. That is, I don’t have to digress, but I will.

They say “cooking is an art, but baking is a science.” Well, cooking is science, too. In fact, everything is science. Every moment of our lives, we are manipulating the elements of existence in some way — either consciously or unconsciously, inside our bodies and out — and science is merely the rules by which those elements operate. (Says me, who is not a scientist.)

Walking, breathing and digesting are all science. So is flying a kite and petting a kitten and trying to open a bag of chips. My point is, baking is science, but it’s also an experimental art and if you don’t measure things exactly or follow the recipe down to the very last grain of salt, you’ll be fine. The recipe may or may not be fine or it might be even better, but you will be fine. Failing is learning. (Says me, who does not like to have my mistakes pointed out.)

The new recipe turned out pretty well. It has lots of rhubarb and a brown sugar streusel topping that gives the cake a buttery crunch as well as a welcome hit of sweetness to soften the rhubarb’s sour bite. The sour cream makes it wonderfully moist. However, maybe I should have listened to my husband, because while this cake is fine and dandy, it’s not quite as scrumptious as the rhubarb cakies I made in 2021 and, though I hate to admit it, not as yummy (in my opinion) as good, old-fashioned crumble. Nevertheless, the recipe is well worth sharing. I mean, this is butter and sugar and, most importantly, rhubarb we’re talking about here.

Fortunately, I think I have enough rhubarb left over to make a half-dozen apple-rhubarb crumbles. I hope my husband, a man of infinite tolerance, won’t be too heartbroken because I forced him to eat delicious cake. I shall be watching his face for the slightly raised eyebrow that indicates utter emotional devastation.

Rhubarb Sour Cream Cake

Cake:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1¼ cups white sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1 cup sour cream or Greek yogurt

4 cups diced rhubarb

2 teaspoons vanilla

½ teaspoon ginger

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

 Streusel topping:

1 cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup butter (half a stick) at room temperature

¼ cup flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon ginger

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Sift flour, sugar, baking soda, salt and spices into a large bowl. Beat eggs with vanilla and stir in sour cream. Add to batter and mix until smooth then fold in rhubarb. (Batter will be thick.) Spread evenly into baking dish and set aside. Using a pastry cutter or fork, blend brown sugar, flour, butter and spices together until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly atop the batter and bake for 45 minutes or until dark golden brown on top and a toothpick comes out clean. Serve with whipped cream, ice cream or English custard.