Whiteley Creek Homestead

For my year long cake-of-the-month challenge I set for myself, I sketched out a loose plan at the beginning of 2009 deciding what kind of cakes, cupcakes, and coffeecakes would be appropriate for each month taking into consideration in-season fruits and holiday or seasonal themes. For May I just knew it must be rhubarb, therefore May's cake-of-of-the-month is Rhubarb Almond Coffeecake. I used a recipe from allrecipes.com, but I tweaked it by reducing the sugar and oil, adding three different spices, increasing the amount of rhubarb, and adding coconut in the topping. The recipe called for 3/4 cup rhubarb which I increased to 2 cups because each spring I have a seriously large amount of rhubarb to use up. I increased the flour amount to compensate for the additional rhubarb. There's no reason to be afraid of rhubarb's tartness. With a little sweetener, this early season treat adds such a wonderful moistness to baked goods. The aroma of the cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves wafting from the oven is reason enough to bake this moist delectable coffeecake with spring's first offering from the garden. 

Rhubarb Almond Coffeecake

Serves 12.

¾ ½ cup packed brown sugar

1/3 ¼ cup (coconut) oil or unsweetened applesauce

1 egg

½ tsp vanilla

1 ¼ cups flour 2 ¼ cups whole wheat pastry flour or a mix of  (The extra cup is needed to absorb the moisture from the increased  amount of rhubarb that I chose to add to the recipe.)

½ tsp salt

½  1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp nutmeg, ½ tsp cloves (my own recipe additions)

½ cup milk (I used buttermilk.)

¾ cup 2 cups chopped rhubarb (approx. 4 large stalks)

Topping:

¼ cup sliced almonds

½ cup coconut (my own recipe addition)

3 tbsp white sugar (I used coconut sugar.)

1 ½ tsp butter, melted

1 tsp cinnamon (my own recipe addition)

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease one 9-inch round spring form pan. (I find that the cake is easier to remove if you line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper cut into a circle then oil the paper a bit.) In a large bowl beat brown sugar, oil, egg, and vanilla together until smooth. Combine flour, salt, baking soda, and spices; add to sugar mixture alternately with milk. Beat until smooth. (It’s not proper procedure, but I skip the alternating flour/milk step and mix all the milk at one time into the sugar mixture then mix in all of the flour at once. I find this prevents over-mixing the flour.) Fold in rhubarb. Pour into prepared pan. In a small bowl, combine topping ingredients and sprinkle evenly over batter. Bake for 35-45 minutes until a toothpick poked into the center of the coffeecake comes out clean.