_900.png "Cardamom, Ginger & Rhubarb Upside Down Cake")
A new seasonal rendition of one of our most loved recipes! This Cardamom, Ginger & Rhubarb Upside Down Cake is made with the same delicious cake batter as our crowd favourite Cardamom, Ginger & Blue Plum Coffee Cake, with a few twists!
This cake has a beautiful topping of fresh forced rhubarb, soaked in a delicious Rosewood honey based caramel with hints of orange, ginger, and cardamom. A burst of spring flavour!
If you're celebrating Easter, this weekend, try this cake as a special dessert or Easter brunch treat.
Meet Our Farmers & Producers
Lennox Farms
The star of the show in this recipe, our forced rhubarb comes from our friends at Lennox Farm! Located in Shelburne, ON, Lennox Farms is a 5th generation family-owned farm, owned and operated by Brian and Jeanette French.
Forced rhubarb is rhubarb that is "forced" to grow in heated, dark sheds without any sunlight. When regular field rhubarb reaches 2-3 years old and have spent their lives soaking up energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil, the roots of these rhubarb plants are harvested in the fall and moved to a windowless, heated barn.
Here, they grow in complete darkness. The heat "forces" the roots to expend all that stored energy from the sun into pushing up their leaves and stocks.
The darkness prevents the production of chlorophyll - and without chlorophyll, the rhubarb doesn't develop it's typical sour green & bitter taste. Growing it this way produces a more tender, less tart, and much sweeter rhubarb than field rhubabrd with a more vibrant pink/red colour. Pretty cool process!
Lennox is one of the only operating forced rhubarb growers left in Ontario!
K2 Milling
Mike Hayhoe is the man behind K2 Milling and all the amazing flours we sell at The Market, including the all-purpose "Viking" flour used in this rhubarb upside down cake recipe!
Here is what makes k2 Milling such a unique operation: the amazing diversity of grains they mill. They mill grits, light flours, coarse flours, dried fruits, vegetables, cereals, even quinoa!
At k2, his goal is to mill artisanal, high quality product that retains the unique properties of each grain AND the nutrition!
Alliston Creamery
The silky smooth and flavourful "Golden Dawn" brand of butter comes to you from Alliston Creamery locating in Alliston, ON.
Alliston Creamery is a small facility that works hard to produce butter using milk from the Niagara and Golden Horseshoe region to produce their rich, creamy Golden Dawn butter.
Homestead Farm
One of our Homestead Farm free-run eggs are used in this coffee cake recipe!
Homestead Free Run eggs come from small flocks that receive a high level of care. Like, REALLY small flocks. In total, Homestead sources eggs from only 55 different flocks with hundreds of birds. In comparison, larger free-run egg farmer have flocks easily numbering in the thousands.
Fisherville Greenhouses
Our incredible fresh ginger used in this recipe is sourced from Fisherville's finest, Fisherville Greenhouses!
Pro-tip, when their fresh ginger comes back in season, snatch some up and tuck some away in the freezer! We did this with one of our last shipments of Fisherville's fresh ginger back in September and have been able to enjoy it out of season in our recipes. Simply take it out of the freezer to thaw 30 minutes before using it.
Harmony Organics
Harmony Organics is an organic dairy owned and operated by Lawrence and Mathilde Andres in Kincardine, ON and we use their 2% organic milk in this recipe.
All their dairy farms share a philosophy of high animal welfare and environmental sustainability. All the dairy herds have access to sunshine, fresh air and clean water daily.
In fact, since during warmer months the cows are eating grass, the taste of their milk products can change slightly as the herds menu does!
Ingredients
- 3/4lb Lennox Farms forced rhubarb
- 2/3 cup Rosewood honey
- juice of half an orange
- 1/2 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Butter for greasing pan
For the Cake
- 1 ½ cups K2 Milling "Viking" AP flour
- 2 stalks Lennox Farms forced rhubarb, diced
- 1 cup sugar
- ½ cup (113g) Golden Dawn salted butter, room temperature
- juice & zest of half a Mike & Mike Organic's Valencia orange
- 1 tbsp fresh grated ginger
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 1 ½ tsp salt
- 1 ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom
- 1 medium Homestead Farm egg
- ½ cup Harmony milk (any % regular milk is fine, including skim!)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Prepare your rhubarb layer in your cakepan. Carefully cut and remove the rhubarb leaves from the stalks (rhubarb leaves are poisonous!). Now, you can get creative with the design for your upside down cake as we did, or simply just cut your stalks to fit across your cake pan.
Brush the base and sides of your cake pan with butter. In a bowl, combine your honey, orange zest, fresh ginger, and cardamom and stir to combine. Pour this into the base of your greased pan. Layer your rhubarb stalks, with the full rounded side down, on top of the honey layer. Set aside.
In a small bowl, combine your milk, 1 tbsp freshly grated ginger and vanilla extract. Let this steep while you measure out the rest of your ingredients.
In a large bowl, beat together your butter and sugar until light and fluffy (approximately 4 minutes). If you are using and electric mixer, fit with a paddle attachment.
Add in your 1 egg and beat for an additional 1-2 minutes until fully combined.
In a medium sized bowl, sift together your Viking AP flour, baking powder, salt, orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg and ground cardamom.
Whole cardamom retains more flavour than ground cardamom but both are fine to use in this recipe! If you are using whole cardamon, place about 8-10 pods in a mortar and pestle and lightly hit to open the pods. Remove the cardamom seeds from the pods and place them in the mortar. Grind with the pestle until the cardamom is ground (and enjoy the smell, fresh cardamom from the pod is incredibly fragrant!)
If you are using already ground cardamom, simply measure and add to your dry ingredients.
Take your milk, ginger and vanilla mixture and strain it to remove the fibrous ginger pieces. You should smell a beautiful ginger aroma in the milk. Add the juice of one orange to the milk.
Alternate adding dry ingredients and milk mixture to the stand mixer on low-medium speed until fully combined. This is a thick batter. If you have some rhubarb left over, chop up about 2-3 stalks to add to the batter fir some extra rhubarb flavour!
Pour your batter into your prepared cake pan over top of the rhubarb and use a angled spatula or a spoon to carefully smooth out the batter.
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean. This is when you know the cake is done.
Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes. You don't want to let this cake cool completely or the caramel layer at the bottom will harden and you may have trouble removing the cake in one piece.
To remove, carefully use a knife to cut around the edges of the cake pan to loosen the cake. Place a plate or cutting board over the top of the cake pan and flip to reveal your rhubarb upside down design and delicious caramel.
Serve immediately for dessert with a generous scoop of ice cream!
Did You Try This Recipe?
We want to see your Rhubarb Upside Down Cake! Post a photo and tag us at @themarketat100kmfoods!
