Rhubarb Buckle

*UPDATE – See this post about our new eating habits.(7/10/11)

Please excuse some of my pictures in this post. I’ve been experimenting a little bit since I had a photography lesson…..but these didn’t turn out very well. Let’s just pretend they did and move along. Thanks for your cooperation. Let’s see, we’ve covered crisp, cobbler, crumble, grunt, and now buckle. I LOVE buckles. Most recipes you’ll see will call for blueberries. You could really use any fruit for this dish, but you’d have to adjust the sugar amount. I needed to use up this rhubarb, so I went with it. I am ready for fresh rhubarb! I need to clean my freezer out to store this year’s bounty. What’s a buckle? It’s basically a cake with fruit. As the cake cooks, the fruit sinks to the bottom, pushing the batter to the top…..it buckles. And when that happens, it’s totally divine. YUM, YUM! Of course, after you eat it there is probably going to be some adjustment with another buckle – if you catch my drift.

We’ll need butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, baking powder, salt, milk, rhubarb, flour,  and cinnamon. The original recipe called for a topping that had 1 ½ cups of sugar and 1 cup of butter. WHEW! I don’t know about you, but I like to save that much butter for things like biscuits and pasta dishes. So, I just took that part out and put a sugar cinnamon mix on top of mine. I was not sorry. Maybe I could be a spokeswoman for Weight Watchers……nah, I still love my butter.

Grab a mixing bowl and whip together your softened butter and sugar. Annie comes running when I turn my mixer on. She knows magical things are happening. This one is starting to make some funny noises though…..for some reason, all my appliances start making funny noises after I use them for a while. Maybe I should start reading the manual first……nah.

After it’s nice and creamed together add the eggs, vanilla, baking powder, and salt. Mix it up again until it’s nice and smooth. You can use your elbow grease to do this if you like…..my elbow grease canister was empty when I made this.

Now add the milk and flour. It will be nice and smooth when you’re done. When I was little, I used to eat batter…….mom let me. Now I would freak out if I ate it. Funny how things change when you grow up……I don’t jump off moving swings anymore either. I’m such a pansy.

Fold in your rhubarb with a spatula. We don’t want to overmix it, just stir until combined. If you’re using frozen rhubarb like me, don’t thaw before you add it…..as a general rule, you don’t thaw any frozen fruit before you use it in a recipe. There are exceptions to that rule – there are exceptions to every rule. Like the speed limit? There are totally exceptions to that rule! Like – I need to use the potty.

Here’s a Stacy tip for ya (most of you probably already do this). Keep your paper from your stick of butter and use it to butter the dish instead of using spray. That way you’re getting all the use out of that deliciousness.

Spread the batter evenly into a 9×13 inch dish. I think rhubarb is so pretty!

Combine your remaining sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. This bowl says “Do Not Microwave” on the bottom…..however, I didn’t read that part until after I had already done so and wondered – why are there burn marks on my bowl? Oops. You’re safe though! No microwaving in this recipe!

Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the cake. WHOA! That’s a ton of sugar…..but not really. The rhubarb needs it. You need it. Sprinkle and be happy.

Bake at 375 for about 40 minutes….until it starts to bubble and looks like this on the edges. There is some leftover sugar that didn’t cook down in there, but when you scoop it out into a dish, it’ll mix in. No sweat. Speaking of sweat, you might need to break one after eating this – but it’s totally worth it! Pop in a Richard Simmons video while you eat.