Rhubarb Cake with Cornmeal Recipe Linked

During my unwanted, undesired internet hiatus last week, and while Kevin was out of town, I wanted to make a treat to deliver to my “reality sisters” for Survivor night on Thursday.  I normally take something over while we watch “our show” and visit.  But I was unable to go since I needed to be home with the boys and Kevin was gone.   I had just taken one of Paige's classes a few days earlier and my friend, Marina, had to leave the class early and missed dessert!  Marina is one of the Survivor watchers, so I decided to make Paige’s cake and deliver it to the girls.

The cake from Paige’s class was a delicious cake made with cornmeal which gave it a great texture and flavor and was dotted with rhubarb over the top.  It was also sprinkled with turbinado sugar, which added a great subtle crunch to it.  Paige used cardamom to add more flavor to the cake and I swear I finally bought some, but couldn’t find it.  So cinnamon was my alternate.  I emailed a bit with Paige about the cake, especially since I questioned her making the cake in a 10-inch tart pan and I only have an 11-inch pan.  We finally decided it would be best for me to make 1 1/2 times the recipe and fill the pan half full with batter and use the extra in some smaller tart pans I have.  That worked perfectly, and meant more cake! ;)

You can use this same cake to make all kinds of variations.  In place of the cornmeal, you could use a nut flour.  You could also use blueberry and lime instead of rhubarb and orange, as well as raspberry/lime, or apricots, or any variations you’d like to try.  (Strawberries might be too watery, but you could certainly try them.)  I can’t wait to try it with blueberries when they’re in season and I love apricots, so I’ve got lots of cake to make soon. ;)  The cake was simply served with some whipped cream.

Here’s one of the small ones where just for fun, I threw on some blackberries and a slice of strawberry, just because I had some.  It looks pretty. 

I followed Paige’s recipe exactly, except for the cardamom, so go check out her cake and the recipe on her blog, A Cooking Life.  It’s a great one to have in your cake recipes collection.  Thanks—again, Paige!

What?  You didn’t think I’d send the whole cake to my friends, did you? ;)  Marina actually wasn’t able to go watch Survivor either, so I took some cake to her and some to Julie’s.  Happy to share!