Whooohoooo! This week has been crazy. I think Thursday and Friday Elea and I accomplished nothing but watching movies and eating raw chocolate chip cookie dough. :)
I have a confession to make to all my blogger readers.
I have never watched Lord of the Rings.
After telling Elea this, she decided to remedy the situation and on Thursday night we would have a marathon of LOTR. It was amazing....I don't know when we went to bed or when we got up, but we did it. :D I really enjoyed them. It's very difficult for me to imagine...having an imagination like Tolkein because I would have never been able to write a book like that. Because I do not have an imagination like his, I always end up having a deep respect for people who are able to write about what they dream up in their minds. I'll let this follow up to a book i read yesterday. It's called "Uglies" by Scott Westerfield. It's FASCINATING. I would actually recommend it to anyone. I really want my sister Hannah to read it because I think she would really enjoy it. I can only recommend the first book "Uglies" as I have not had a chance to read any of the other one's Mr. Westerfield has written.
The one on the right is the book I read and what the cover looks like, and the one on the left is the sequel.
"In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly." (Fascinating concept :D)
Now to talk about Rhubarb Coffee Cake :)
I took this recipe from www.smittenkitchen.com....So I give her all the credit :D
Butter for greasing pan
For the rhubarb filling:
1/2 pound rhubarb, trimmed
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
For the crumbs:
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick or 4 ounces) butter, melted
1 3/4 cups cake flour (I was out and used all-purpose and it worked great)
For the cake:
1/3 cup sour cream
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour (ditto on the all-purpose flour–worked just fine)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons softened butter, cut into 8 pieces.
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease an 8-inch-square baking pan. For filling, slice rhubarb 1/2 inch thick and toss with sugar, cornstarch and ginger. Set aside.
2. To make crumbs [this step now updated, see comment #150] in a large bowl, whisk sugars, spices and salt into melted butter until smooth. Then, add flour with a spatula or wooden spoon. It will look and feel like a solid dough. Leave it pressed together in the bottom of the bowl and set aside.
3. To prepare cake, in a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, mix together flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add butter and a spoonful of sour cream mixture and mix on medium speed until flour is moistened. Increase speed and beat for 30 seconds. Add remaining sour cream mixture in two batches, beating for 20 seconds after each addition, and scraping down the sides of bowl with a spatula. Scoop out about 1/2 cup batter and set aside.
4. Scrape remaining batter into prepared pan. Spoon rhubarb over batter. Dollop set-aside batter over rhubarb; it does not have to be even.
5. Using your fingers, break topping mixture into big crumbs, about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch in size. They do not have to be uniform, but make sure most are around that size. Sprinkle over cake. Bake cake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean of batter (it might be moist from rhubarb), 45 to 55 minutes. Cool completely before serving.
Yield: 6 to 8 servings.
I will have pictures of it up later :)
