Forced rhubarb

- two cakes and a fool (incl something a little Valentinesey if you're that way inclined)

When the days are dank and grey. When the hours of daylight seem to be showing little prospect of lengthening. When winter has lost any romantic allure it once had and you are now just Fed Up with it, a pop of slightly silly colour can be all that is needed to lift the general mood. Handily, that’s just the moment that forced rhubarb tartly sashays into the kitchen with its bright pink stalks and, honestly, things feel that little bit cheerier.

From: Seasoning - How To Cook and Celebrate the Seasons / Winter /Rhubarb

I remember feeling so strongly Fed Up with winter when I wrote this opener to the rhubarb section of Seasoning. And I feel just as Fed Up with it now. Maybe more so. Or maybe it just always feels more interminable… Anyway, the bright pink sashay of forced rhubarb has seldom felt more welcome.

If you have Seasoning you’ll know the rhubarb dessert in there is for baked rhubarb sponge. A homely hug of a pudding that I adore. But for these desserts I’m sharing here I’ve decided to lean into forced rhubarb’s more frivolous, more glamorous side. I bring you two cakes and a fool - all making full use of the many flavour partners that rhubarb loves.

First up is a CHOCOLATE CHILLI HEART CAKE WITH CHOCOLATE GLAZE & RHUBARB ‘ROSES’. I am usually not much of a one for Valentines but this year, for some reason, I kind of am. So this cake brings together two supposed aphrodisiacs in the chocolate and chilli and is baked in a heart-shaped tin - but please, of course, use a round one instead if you prefer. It’s finished with pipings of rhubarb puree ‘roses’ that not only give a coyly blushing pink colour but are also a great match for the cinnamon in the cake.

Then comes RHUBARB UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE WITH BLOOD ORNAGE & CARDAMOM CURD. Some of you might know this from when it was included in The Kew Gardens Cookbook. It’s a cake I look forward to every end of winter. Its joy is partly in its flavours, and partly in the blood orange curd (flecked with cardamom) which bakes within the cake - creating a sort of sauce for the rhubarb, and suffusing the sponge with its silky fabulousness. Heaven.

Lastly you’ll find below VERMOUTH-POACHED RHUBARB FOOL where the rhubarb is poached in vermouth so the stalks get full benefit from all the botanicals of roots, flowers, herbs and spices that the vermouth freely offers up.

May the forced rhubarb - and these recipes - bring you some end of winter cheer. Ax