This moist and delicious Rustic Rhubarb Cake recipe is perfect for afternoon tea, as a snack, or as a dessert with a scoop of ice cream. It has a lovely sugar, almond, and rhubarb topping that gives it a simple, homey appearance. The cake is easy to make and is perfect for the rhubarb season.
Want more simple cake recipes? Try our Rhubarb Upside Down Cake, Honey Cake Recipe, Cranberry Orange Bundt Cake, Bavarian Apple Torte, or Boston Cream Poke Cake.
What does Rhubarb Taste like in a Cake?
Rhubarb in a cake or dessert is delightful. On its own, it has a very mouth-puckering tartness. When baked and sugar is added, it mellows in its sourness and becomes delightfully sweet and delicious. Raw rhubarb, I would say, is like a sour green apple.
Rhubarb is high in antioxidants, particularly anthocyanins (which give it its red color) and proanthocyanidins. There are 80 to 100 different varietals of rhubarb, some are green-yellow when cooked up, and some, even to the other spectrum, come out purplish. If you are going to plant a rhubarb patch, check to see which is the best rhubarb for your liking. Color doesn’t make the rhubarb sweeter but may make your dessert prettier!
Helpful Items For This Recipe
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Nonstick 8″ Round Layer Cake Pan, 8 Inch, Metallic
KitchenAid Artisan Series 5-Qt. Stand Mixer with Pouring Shield – Aqua Sky
What is in a Rustic Rhubarb Cake?
You can use fresh rhubarb or frozen rhubarb for this cake. It tends to take longer to bake using frozen, though, and I would add 10-15 minutes to the baking time.
The only other ingredient to note is an almond meal or almond flour, which makes a nice addition of flavor to this cake. I have used this in other recipes, like our Best Graham Cracker Crust. It just ups the flavor profile. It is now fairly easy to find in most grocery stores.
Ingredients
Unsalted butter (at room temp)
White granulated sugar
Large eggs
Vanilla extract
Almond meal or almond flour
All-purpose flour
Baking powder
Rhubarb (chopped)
Extra sugar for topping
Sliced almonds
How to Make a Rhubarb Cake
This cake is easy to assemble, and it is done in layers with rhubarb and sugar in the middle, giving you rhubarb with every bite. This is a simple cake, but we use a baking pan as opposed to a baking dish so the cake can be popped out, sliced, and served. It makes a nicer presentation, I feel.
Preheat the oven to 350F and grease and line an 8” round cake pan with parchment paper.
Add the butter and 3/4 cup sugar to the bowl of an electric stand mixer and beat on medium speed until smooth and fluffy – about 4 minutes.
Then add the vanilla extract and the eggs one by one, beating until combined after each addition.
Add the almond meal, then sift in the flour and baking powder. Mix on a low speed until just combined.
Spread half of the mixture into the bottom of your cake pan in an even layer, then top with half of the rhubarb and sprinkle over 2 tbsp of sugar.
Finishing the Cake
Top with the remaining batter, followed by the remaining rhubarb and sugar. Then scatter over the flaked almonds.
Cover the cake pan with foil and bake for 1 hour, then remove the foil and bake for a further 15 minutes.
Cool on a rack in the pan for 15 minutes, and then remove and cool completely on a cooling rack.
Recipe Pro Tips!
This gorgeous, moist, and delicious cake is perfect served with either whipped cream, ice cream, or on its own. Vanilla ice cream is great, but try a salted caramel to really up the flavor profile of this dessert.
Storage: This cake will keep well in an airtight container at room temp for up to 3 days.
How does it taste?: Soft and fluffy cake with a good balance of sourness from the rhubarb and sweetness from the sugar.
Substitutions/add-ins: Feel free to sub in frozen rhubarb if desired. Add an additional 10 – 15 minutes of baking time with the foil on. You can also switch the flour to gluten-free all-purpose flour if necessary.
Do you want more Rhubarb Recipes?
This gorgeous Rustic Rhubarb Cake is just one of the many rhubarb recipes we have here at Noshing With The Nolands.
We love rhubarb and have many recipes to enjoy what your farmers’ market or backyard rhubarb patches have for you—everything from bars, loaves, tarts, jams, and more.
- Rhubarb Dream Bars (one of our most popular recipes)
- Old Fashioned Rhubarb Loaf
- Super Easy Rhubarb Tarts
- Rhubarb Strawberry Cobbler
- Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
- Blueberry Rhubarb Jam
- Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
- Rhubarb Strawberry Sour Cream Pie
- Old-Fashioned Rhubarb Pudding Cake
- Rhubarb Margaritas
- No Churn Rhubarb Ice Cream Recipe
- Rhubarb Meringue Dessert Recipe
- Rhubarb Raspberry Clafoutis
Rustic Rhubarb Cake
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup unsalted butter at room temp
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 2/3 cups almond meal
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 14 oz rhubarb chopped
- Extra 4 tbsp sugar for topping
- 3 tbsp sliced almonds
Instructions
- Add the butter and 3/4 cup sugar to the bowl of an electric stand mixer and beat on medium speed until smooth and fluffy – about 4 minutes.
- Then add the vanilla extract and the eggs one by one, beating until combined after each addition.
- Add the almond meal, then sift in the flour and baking powder. Mix on a low speed until just combined.
- Spread half of the mixture into the bottom of your cake pan in an even layer, then top with half of the rhubarb and sprinkle over 2 tbsp of sugar.
- Top with the remaining batter, followed by the remaining rhubarb and sugar. Then scatter over the flaked almonds.
- Cover the cake pan with foil and bake for 1 hour, then remove the foil and bake for a further 15 minutes.
- Cool on a rack in the pan for 15 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a cooling rack.
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