Caramel Rhubarb Cake
This Caramel Rhubarb Cake is a light and tender cake with fresh diced rhubarb and a generous swirl of caramel. This is a quick and easy dessert you won’t want to miss!
I’m pretty sure the past few weeks have been the most erratic emotional rollercoaster of my life. I powered through my last finals week of college (stressful), graduated (exciting), had a week of apartment hunting (stressful), went to Sasquatch music festival (crazy fun/exciting/exhausting), had another week of apartment hunting (stressful/exhausting), moved to a new apartment, (exciting/exhausting) and then had four days of furniture shopping and getting settled in.
As I write this, I’m on a flight to New York City to meet up with my mom and visit my sister, followed by a quick trip to Chicago for a few days to celebrate my mom’s birthday. I really haven’t had a break, hence the sort of erratic posting schedule (sorry!).
I’ve been so go, go, go recently! Who knew apartment hunting was so darn hard? Especially in a city like Seattle. My roommate, Ally and I, spent 5 days in Seattle going from apartment to apartment to apartment, looking for something we loved that we could move into on June 1st. Pretty hard to find when you’re looking like, four days before you want to move in.
On Saturday, two days before June 1st, we were still homeless as of June 1st. We had the most depressing lunch ever, sitting in a great restaurant in Seattle, with only two more places to go visit. We were hoping and praying one of those would work, and finally, thankfully, the last apartment we visited ended up being the one.
It was available June 1st, had huge windows with gorgeous lighting (perfect for photos!), a killer view looking out over the water, about 10 grocery stores within a two mile radius, was just renovated, and had all brand new, top of the line kitchen appliances. The kitchen appliances totally sold me: I was a total sucker for the brand new, gorgeous convection oven, silent Bosch dishwasher, and awesome fridge. Definitely a food bloggers’ top priorities.
Now, we just need to get furniture to fill our essentially empty apartment and make it cute and livable! Thankfully, organizing makes me super happy and I love to furniture shop, so it should be fun. I can’t wait to figure out my new photo setup and start baking in my new kitchen!
In the midst of my tumultuous couple weeks, I did manage to bake a couple things before moving out of my college house. This Caramel Rhubarb Cake was definitely a standout. I still can’t believe I had never tried rhubarb until the Berry Rhubarb Pie I made a few weeks ago! Now that I’ve tried it, I’m hooked on the tartness of it, and how well it pairs with so many different flavors.
For this cake, I decided to keep it pretty simple to show off the flavors of the caramel and the rhubarb. I diced up the rhubarb into little bits, and folding it into a lightly cinnamon scented cake batter. I swirled in some caramel sauce I had on hand – you can use prepared caramel sauce or some you’ve made yourself. Both will work deliciously.
I kept the cake naked after baking and just sprinkled on some powdered sugar to dress it up a bit. You don’t need any frosting here – the caramel gives all the sweetness you need to balance out the rhubarb. The cake itself is light, airy, and tender, and the rhubarb bits stay suspended throughout the batter, giving you bursts of flavor in each bite.
This cake is perfect to pair with coffee or tea as a snack, or to serve as a delicious summer dessert. You’re going to want to get your hands on some rhubarb before it disappears for the season and whip this up for your family and friends – they’ll love you for it! I hope your summer is off to a wonderful start (hopefully one less stressful than mine), and that it’s full of sun, good times, and lots of cake :) enjoy!
PrintCaramel Rhubarb Cake
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 12 slices 1x
- Category: Dessert
Ingredients
- 12 oz. rhubarb (about 3 1/2 cups, medium diced)
- 1 stick (1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature)
- 1 1/4 cups white sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 eggs (room temperature)
- 1 2/3 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup caramel sauce
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 10 inch springform baking pan.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
- In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add one egg at a time until well incorporated. Add the vanilla extract. Turn mixer on low and slowly add the flour mixture. Don’t over mix. Fold in the cut rhubarb and transfer the dough to the baking pan. Drizzle on the caramel and swirl in with a knife.
- Bake for about 35 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let cool completely on wire rack before slicing and serving.
Notes
Recipe adapted from My Kitchen In The Rockies
This looks so delicious! I love that action shot of the powdered sugar falling :) Pinned!
Wow, sounds like you’ve had a couple of crazy weeks! Congrats on graduating and finding an apartment so quickly! This cake sounds so cozy and comforting, and I love the dusting of powdered sugar on top. Looks delish! Pinned! :)
I’m so glad you managed to find an apartment, Rachel. Hurrah!
And this cake looks incredible. I love it! <3
Such a delightful cake! I hope life settles down a bit for you now. Congrats on your new apartment! I miss living in the PNW!
Yay for organizing and furniture shopping! I am a weirdo that loves those things too so I totally understand! This cake looks amazing! I love the added caramel!
What a beautiful cake! I love the caramel and rhubarb flavors together – sounds yummy! :)
Wow! You have been busy. Sounds like the perfect apartment was just waiting for you to find it!
Wowza, you are keeping busy! But I’m glad you made time to bake this cake so I could drool all over the pictures and make plans to bake it myself ASAP. Pinning!
Wahoo to finding a place to live! So exciting. Even more exciting…you had this in your back pocket! Beautiful!
Yay for finding the perfect apartment! Moving can be so stressful, but it’s great once you’re finished and get settled it. This cake is also great, rhubarb + caramel sounds incredible!
House hunting and moving is SO stressful! But it sounds like you’ve found the perfect spot. I love Seattle! We went there for a long weekend 2 years ago. So fun. Loving this rhubarb cake : )
Goodness you’ve been busy! Glad you finally found a place though! And this cake sounds absolutely delicious!
Congrats on finding an apartment! It sounds like you’ve been busy but doing lots of fun stuff! This cake looks like the perfect way to use some rhubarb right now.
I made this cake yesterday for a farewell morning tea and everyone loved it. Cake had a great consistency and smelled soooo good. The combination of caramel and rhubarb achieved a good balance of sweet and tartness.
So thrilled you loved it, Dean!!