Rhubarb Bundt Cake with Lemon Glaze

Rhubarb is in season. I’m envious of people with a patch of rhubarb growing in their yards. I have none.

I occasionally can glean some from a family acquaintance or relation. Or, I can buy it at the grocery store. $2.49 a pound! That hurts a little. Especially since my mom used to grow a patch when we were kids and never payed for a stalk of rhubarb in her life probably.

My brother and I used to try to eat it raw. Pick it and eat it. Like it was some cute pink celery. Like it would taste like pie right off the plant.  It’s not and it doesn’t. What can I say. . .kids are dumb.

Is rhubarb old school? Every one and their brother used to grow it when I was a kid. Rhubarb pie was a spring staple.

Now it seems hard to come by. People act like it’s some gourmet exotic ingredients. No one grows clumps of it in their yard anymore. Maybe it’s because I am too citified?  (I’m not, by the way. I live down the road from a big, smelly farm.)

When I lived in Florida, in an actual city (Orlando & Tampa Bay), rhubarb was even harder to come by. That, I understood. Even the grocery store was hard pressed to carry it. There would be a VERY short window that I could find the most pathetic looking rhubarb. You almost had to sell a kidney to afford it, though. But I love rhubarb so I would suck it up and buy some.

Pie is the standard, of course. Strawberry rhubarb pie being common. The strawberry part ruins the rhubarb for me. I am not a huge strawberry lover. Rhubarb can stand alone. It’s stong. I know people LOVE that strawberry mess of a pie. But baking strawberries makes them slimy. I see a lot of recipes right now for roasted strawberries. Really? Slimy, Slimy, Slimy! I can’t get behind that.

I like to make other things with rhubarb besides pie. Like cake. Or crisp. (my personal fave) Or booze. A few years back I infused some vodka with rhubarb. What a martini that made! Pink and girly. It was fantastic. I should make more of that. I just need to make a friend with a wealth of rhubarb. I’ll share the booze, of course. Maybe.

This cake is moist and delicious. The rhubarb adds the perfect tart little bite. And the lemon in the glaze really complements perfectly.

I have even made this swapping half the flour for whole wheat flour and it’s fantastic. I love a good bundt cake. That’s probably old school, too. Although yesterday I saw a Bundt Cake Keeper that I now covet. It looked a little like those Tupperware cake carriers (also old school, by the way. I have one.)  but bundt shaped. Adorable. If I attended a lot of potlucks I might consider it. But I don’t. And I own 3 other cake carriers. Probably would be overkill.

With all my talk of rhubarb  and bundts and Tupperware I am beginning to think I am an old woman trapped in a (relatively) young body. Who knew?

By the way, don’t judge me by these awful pictures. It’s apparently very hard to photograph a bundt cake in a dark kitchen at night.

(Also, typing the word bundt so many times and saying it in my head as I type it, has made me think of the bundt cake presented to the in-laws in that movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Hehehe. And now I am laughing a little in my head.

Rhubarb Bundt Cake

1/2 cup butter, room temp

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1 cup plain Greek yogurt

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

2 cups chopped rhubarb

In a large mixing bowl place the butter and sugars and beat together very well until light and fluffy.

Add the egg, yogurt and vanilla. Mix well.

Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and mix in until well combined. Stir in the rhubarb.

Grease a bundt pan. Spread the batter into the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Cool in the pan and then turn it out onto a serving plate.

Lemon Glaze

Juice of 1 lemon

1-2 cups powdered sugar

Mix the lemon juice with as much sugar as it takes to make a thick but drizzle-able glaze. Drizzle the glaze over the top of the cake and let it drip down the sides of the cake.