Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

My baking bucket list challenge continues this month with an upside down cake. Rather than classic pineapple, I had a baking adventure with a rhubarb upside down cake.

Sometimes, even when a recipe looks like a success, it’s still a failure.  And, that’s what happened with this month’s baking bucket list challenge when baking this rhubarb upside down cake.  Originally, I was going to make a classic pineapple upside down cake but then my mind got stuck on rhubarb…

Let me tell you how this happened…

My grandma used to make rhubarb pie every summer.  I remember it being a regular part of Sunday dinner.  She served it with a dollop of whipped cream on top and my family loved it.  Except me.  For some reason, I avoided it and can’t even recall ever tasting her rhubarb pie. I think it was because rhubarb looked like celery and I didn’t see a celery-flavored pie being very appetizing.

So, I waited until this year to finally try rhubarb. My first time using the ingredient was in a strawberry rhubarb crisp and while the recipe called for fresh rhubarb, I was only able to find frozen.  I loved the crisp (recipe here!).  It was sweet from the strawberry and tart from the rhubarb and that’s when I became stuck on rhubarb, wanting to bake with it more.

I looked everywhere for fresh rhubarb and wasn’t able to find it because it was towards the end of rhubarb season in Texas.  Then, one night I walked into Whole Foods and just happened to spot fresh rhubarb. I bought two bunches of rhubarb and was set on baking something with it and that’s when I decided I’d turn my June baking bucket list challenge of upside down cake into a rhubarb upside down cake.

Making my rhubarb upside down cake

I chose this recipe for my rhubarb cake.  And to be honest, I chose it not because of the recipe but because of the photo. I loved the criss-cross look of the rhubarb on top and just fell in love. After purchasing all the ingredient to make the cake I dug into the recipe this past Sunday.  And as soon as I read step two, I started to have hesitations.

Below I’ve shared the red flags I saw with this rhubarb upside down cake recipe that should have stopped me from baking it.  But since I didn’t, I’ve also shared what I’d do next time around (there won’t be a next time around but you can use these tips if you want to make this cake!)

The recipe said to prepare a 9-inch cake pan.

• My gut was telling me this pan was way too small to adequately house rhubarb and cake batter while it baked in the oven. I knew it would be too small and bubble over but I used the 9-inch pan anyways.
• When I finally got my rhubarb and cake batter into the pan, I had about a half-inch of free space left for the cake to bake into.  In order to save my oven, should it bake over the edge, I placed my cake pan on a large baking sheet to catch any overflow (which it did, it formed a bubbly caramel mess on my sheet pan and around the edge of the cake).
• If I make this recipe again, I’d use a tall, springform pan, similar to what I’d use for a cheesecake.

The recipe said to mix 4-inch pieces of rhubarb with sugar and corn starch in a bowl and let it sit.

• Rhubarb is a dry fruit and typically the purpose of mixing fruit with sugar & corn starch is so the juices mix with the sugar and starch to sweeten the fruit while forming a ‘sauce’ when it bakes to help everything thicken.
• Because these were basically dry stalks of wood in sugar, nothing happened.  The sugar didn’t stick to the stalks, there wasn’t any sweetening of the rhubarb, and the sugar basically sat at the bottom of the bowl.
• My instinct was to cut the rhubarb into the 4-inch pieces as directed but also split the pieces in half so the width of the stalks was exposed to mix with the sugar and cornstarch.  Cutting them into less-wide pieces would also help with the above pan issue.  I also think cutting the rhubarb up into small pieces like cubes would make this step successful.

The recipe then directed me to place the rhubarb sticks into the bottom of a pan and include the ‘remaining’ sugar they were mixed with.

• However, because the sugar never mixed with the rhubarb I was basically dumping a half cup of sugar into the bottom of the pan.  A pan that was already covered in a melted brown sugar, butter, and thyme mixture.
• My workaround was to place the rhubarb in a single layer and sprinkle some of the remaining sugar on top.  I definitely didn’t add the entire half cup.
• If you make this recipe, I believe cutting the rhubarb into smaller pieces would eliminate the excess sugar because a syrup would have truly formed.

The recipe didn’t have any reviews.

• In fact, it didn’t even have a way to LEAVE reviews which should have been a giant red flag to me.
• So, in place of my ability to leave a review or comment on the actual recipe, I’ve dedicated a whole blog post to it providing a very thorough review (haha!).

So how did the cake turn out?

By some miracle, the cake did bake up without being a complete wreck.  It came out of the pan and had a similar criss-cross pattern from the rhubarb as the recipe photo.  However, the taste was just ‘meh.’

The rhubarb was stringy when cutting into it and the thyme on top included in the brown sugar layer looked like little bugs which made for an unappealing experience.  The rhubarb layer also didn’t have a ton of flavor.  The cake part itself, though, was quite delicious.  It was a dense vanilla cake with a slightly citrus note from the orange zest.  If each part were eaten separately, it could have probably been considered good.  But consuming both the stringy rhubarb top and dense cake together just left me underwhelmed.

So, in short, I will NOT be making this cake again.

But I am checking this off for my June baking bucket list challenge, though, I may still explore making another upside down cake in July along with the blueberry pie I have planned.  Stay tuned and follow me on Instagram for updates if you’re interested in my upside down baking journey.

Check out my other baking bucket list adventures here!