What's in Season? 5 sweet ways to use up rhubarb in March

The hardy root is heading out of season as we head into March - here are five ways to use up your stock and get a bit of baking in

Rhubarb: despite being a vegetable, its thick and fleshy stalks are treated akin to a fruit

Rhubarb crumble

This is my recipe for rhubarb crumble that is coeliac friendly providing you use gluten-free oats. If you don’t have oat flour, blitz your oats in the food processor and it’ll work just as well.

Servings

6

Preparation Time

 10 mins

Cooking Time

 45 mins

Total Time

 55 mins

Course

 Dessert

Cuisine

 Irish

Ingredients

• 3 large stalks of rhubarb, chopped into small chunks

• 50g caster sugar

• 100g oat flour

• 50g butter, cut into small cubes

• 50g caster sugar

• 50g jumbo oats

• 25g sunflower seeds

• 25g pumpkin seeds

Method

1. Preheat your (fan assisted) oven to 170°C.

2. Put the chopped rhubarb and the first 50g of sugar into the baking dish. Stir so that the sugar coats the rhubarb pieces.

3. Into a large mixing bowl put the oat flour and butter. Making sure your hands are clean, use the tips of your fingers to rub the butter and flour together until you get a breadcrumb like texture. *note you might find that the ratio of butter and flour makes it a bit 'chunky', that's fine it will balance out in the end. Add the sugar and rub the mixture together again. Finally, add the jumbo oats and seeds, then stir well so that all the crumble ingredients are combined.

4. Loosely sprinkle the crumble on top of the rhubarb in the dish. Never, ever press a crumble mixture down, it depends on the air you introduce to make it light and crisp! If you're not a fan of thick crumble then only sprinkle half the mixture on top of the fruit and put the rest in the freezer for another day. Crumble mixture freezes extremely well and this mixture is suitable for any fruit crumble, not just rhubarb.

5. Bake the crumble in the oven for 25-45 minutes, removing when the top of the crumble turns golden brown.

Cullohill rhubarb pie

recipe by:Darina Allen

With a delicate, buttery pastry and tart rhubarb chunks, this pie is irresistible for an afternoon summertime treat

Servings

8

Preparation Time

 2 hours 20 mins

Cooking Time

 45 mins

Total Time

 3 hours 5 mins

Course

 Baking

Ingredients

• For the pastry:

• 225g butter, softened

• 50g caster sugar

• 2 eggs

• 350g plain flour

• For the filling:

• 900g sliced red rhubarb (about 1cm thick)

• 370g  granulated sugar depending on whether you are using forced or garden rhubarb

• 1 egg, beaten

• dash of milk

• caster sugar, for sprinkling

• To serve:

• softly whipped cream

• Barbados/ soft dark brown sugar

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

2. First, make the pastry. Cream the butter and sugar together by hand or in a food mixer. Add the eggs one by one and beat for several minutes. Reduce speed and mix in the flour slowly.

3. Turn out onto a piece of floured greaseproof paper, flatten into a round wrap and chill. This pastry needs to be chilled for at least 2 hours otherwise it is difficult to handle.

4. To make the egg wash, combine a dash of milk and beaten egg.

5. To make the tart, roll out the pastry 3mm thick, and use about ⅔ of it to line a suitable tin. Place the sliced rhubarb into the tart, sprinkle with sugar. Cover with a lid of pastry, seal edges, decorate with pastry leaves, egg wash and bake in the preheated oven until the apples are tender, about 45 minutes to 1 hour. When cooked cut into squares, sprinkle lightly with caster sugar and serve with softly whipped cream and Barbados sugar.