Rhubarb streusel sheet cake: creamed butter sponge, the first cake of spring
A buttery creamed sponge, rhubarb pieces scattered densely on top and tossed in potato starch so the juice can't make the cake soggy, and a thick streusel over it all. Sour rhubarb and sweet streusel balance in the oven; the sponge underneath stays moist. May and June, when rhubarb is pink, thin and cheap.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Batter and streusel 25 min
- Baking 45 min
- Cooling 15 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneMake the streusel
Rub the cold cubed butter into the flour and sugar with your fingertips into coarse crumbs. Refrigerate so it holds its shape in the oven.
Ingredients: 120 g plain flour · 80 g butter · 70 g sugar
Coarse crumbs, then into the fridgePrepare the rhubarb
Wash the rhubarb, trim the ends and cut into 2 cm pieces. Don't peel thin stalks: the skin gives the pink colour. Toss with the potato starch until every piece is coated. Heat the oven to 180 °C, line the tin with paper.
Ingredients: 500 g rhubarb · 1 tbsp potato starch · 2 tbsp sugar · 1 tbsp icing sugar
TipRhubarb is 95 % water. Potato starch binds the juice into a jelly instead of letting it soak the sponge and turn it soggy. This one step decides the cake.
2 cm pieces coated in potato starchCream the batter
Beat the soft butter with the sugar and vanilla sugar until pale and fluffy, 4 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each. Add the flour with the baking powder and salt, the lemon zest, pour in the milk and mix briefly until smooth. Spread evenly in the tin.
Ingredients: 180 g butter · 170 g sugar · 1 tbsp vanilla sugar · 3 pcs eggs · 250 g plain flour · 2 tsp baking powder · 60 ml milk · ½ pcs lemon, zest · 1 pinch salt
Fluffy batter spread evenlyAdd the rhubarb
Scatter the rhubarb densely over the batter and press in lightly. Sprinkle with 2 spoons of sugar: rhubarb is very sour and needs sweetness from above, not only from the sponge.
Densely, lightly pressed, sugar on topStreusel on top, then bake
Scatter the chilled streusel evenly. Bake 40–45 minutes at 180 °C, until the streusel is golden and a skewer pushed between the rhubarb pieces comes out dry.
Streusel over the rhubarb, into the ovenCool and dust
Cool in the tin 15 minutes, cut into squares, dust with icing sugar. Warm with whipped cream, cold with coffee. Keeps 3 days covered and is moister on the second day.
Rhubarb soft, streusel golden
Before you start
With strawberries
300 g rhubarb and 200 g halved strawberries: June in one cake, sweeter and pinker.
Meringue instead of streusel
Whip 3 egg whites with 150 g sugar until stiff, spread over the rhubarb after 25 minutes of baking and bake 20 minutes more at 160 °C: the classic meringue-topped version.
Soggy under the rhubarb
Stalks too thick (too much juice) or the potato starch skipped. Peel and split thick stalks lengthways, and never skip the starch.
