Aunt Moya's Rhubarb Cake

If you have someone you love and they say they don't care for rhubarb, this is the gateway baked good to lure them into a lifelong affection for the ultimate pie plant. From this delicious brown-sugar and rhubarb cake, to a strawberry rhubarb pie, to rhubarb sauce on ice-cream, the path is paved with deliciousness. And since a patch of rhubarb is relatively easy to establish, the harvested stems cut into 1" pieces are even easier to freeze for year-round deliciousness, it's an ideal plant to have in a sunny garden corner. Keep in mind it'll get about 3-4' in diameter, and will last literally forever - it's one of the ways to find old farms, just look for the pie plant patch which will be there long after the house has fallen in.

Back on the farm, we found babies under the very big rhubarb leaves!

This is a one-bowl cake, they don't come much easier to mix up than this one. It's dense, moist, and delicious, with pockets of piquant rhubarb throughout.

• 1 1/2 c brown sugar

• 1/2 c Shortening (I use lard)

• 1 egg

• 1 c sour milk (you can sour your milk by adding a tsp of vinegar or lemon juice)

• 2 c flour

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp vanilla

• 2 c cut up rhubarb (I usually cut mine into 1" chunks)

• Topping: Sprinkle on top of batter before baking

• 1/2 c sugar mixed with cinnamon (I usually do struesel, here)

Preheat oven to 350 F

Cream together the sugar and lard. Mix in the vanilla, the egg, and then the milk. Mix in the flour, and then fold the rhubarb into the batter. Turn into a greased 9x13" pan, add topping, and bake for about 35 minutes, or when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Wonderful served slightly warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I had mine with Butter Pecan frozen yogurt.

I had to do this twice. The first cake I made got eaten so quickly, I didn't have time to do photographs of it! Everyone loves it at our house, and Aunt Moya has been making this family favorite for nigh on to 40 years, now. Which makes it a classic, in my book.