Rhubarb Crumble Cake

I fell in love with crumbles in my early childhood: in my grandparents’ bakery. Your bakery was my second home. I loved eating the freshly made crumble dough – raw, just like that. Even back then, I thought sprinkles were the best treat in the world. Especially raw and baked. Its crispy sweetness combined with buttery mildness – a dream! These beloved crumbles refine my simple rhubarb cake recipe for a juicy rhubarb crumble cake in the unfortunately short rhubarb season.

What characterizes my simple rhubarb crumble cake recipe?

If you love crumbles and rhubarb as much as I do, I can really recommend my easy and quick recipe for rhubarb crumble cake. Because sweet, crunchy crumbles meet a juicy and sour rhubarb mass.

• my recipe is THE cake for all crumble fans, because both the cake base and the topping are made from the same crumble dough mass.
• Making your own sprinkles is so easy . With my juicy rhubarb cake you even save yourself a step. You make the base like the topping in just one step.
• the prep time for crumbles, caramelizing the rhubarb in the pan and filling the springform pan takes less than 20 minutes . Your oven will do the rest.
• You need very few ingredients for the rhubarb crumble cake  . You probably already have most of them at home.
• the Streuselboden cake is also suitable for baking beginners and always succeeds.
• the rhubarb recipe has many fans and over 150 positive reviews from readers here on my food blog. I am always happy to receive further suggestions and letters.

I first published the rhubarb cake recipe on my food blog in 2018. In no time the simple recipe had a large following. Since then, my Streuselboden cake with rhubarb recipe has been successfully baked, rated and commented on by many readers. I have therefore expanded this hit of my recipe posts with numerous tips, added new pictures and now republished them here. Get inspired.

What ingredients do you need for my simple rhubarb cake recipe?

Since the cake base and the topping are made of the same crumble dough, you only need a few ingredients for my delicious and simple rhubarb cake with crumble. In addition to fresh rhubarb, you only need three ingredients for the crumble dough.

butter

When buying the butter for my rhubarb cake with crumble, please pay attention to the quality of the butter. Do not use “spreadable butter” to prepare the crumbles. Softeners, such as vegetable oil, are usually added to the “spread-soft” variants. My recipe for juicy rhubarb cake in the springform pan works best with German branded butter, the highest quality level according to the German Butter Ordinance. You can recognize them by a printed eagle with an oval border. I recommend the German branded butter as sweet cream butter, also for reasons of taste. In the mildly acidified variant, I find that the crumble dough does not taste so good.

sugar

For the crumble production, I use conventional, white granulated sugar, which is obtained from local sugar beets. If you prefer to use cane sugar, i.e. sugar that is obtained from tropical grass plants, I would actually use cane sugar and not cane sugar or whole cane sugar.

flour

For the crumbles I use a conventional household flour, wheat flour type 405. But if you prefer to bake with spelled flour type 630, you can easily swap the wheat flour for spelled flour or mix both types of flour. The spelled flour type 630 has a very similar taste to wheat flour, i.e. it is mild.

Tips for success: Baking rhubarb crumble cake is very easy

Done in no time. You’ll see, with my tips for the best and simplest rhubarb crumble cake, you won’t be in the kitchen for more than 25 minutes. It is a real pleasure to bake this easy rhubarb cake. My success tips will help you to achieve the best cake result. My crumble secret from my grandparents’ bakery is very important. But of course I’m happy to share that with you.

The Streusel Secret – Ratio 2:2:4

It’s hard to believe, but there is a “crumble-making science”. This comes from the bakery of my grandparents and has proven itself for decades. The consistency of the crumble is extremely important for a great crumble result. And you get the right consistency if you keep to the ratio of the ingredients. Getting the crumble consistency right is far more important than arguing about how warm or cold the butter should be, whether the butter should be melted, room temperature, or cold. Again, I keep it simple: the butter shouldn’t be ice cold. If it is still chilled, it will warm up when you knead it by hand at the latest.

I completely trust the perfect crumble ratio of 2:2:4 of butter, sugar and wheat flour as I learned in my grandparents’ bakery. The ingredient ratio of the crumble dough is based on a proportion of 75 grams each. That means 150g butter, 150g sugar and 300g flour.

How do you make sprinkles?

For the streusel base and the streusel topping, mix the 3 ingredients into a crumbly, slightly sandy mass using the dough hook in a hand mixer or food processor. Then you knead the mass into crumbles with your hand  and put the bowl with the crumbles in the fridge.

I guarantee you, if you stick to this ratio, the crumbles will be nice and crunchy and won’t be mushy even after a day or two. This consistency is ideal for my rhubarb crumble cake, which in my opinion is one of the simplest fruit cakes in the world, even in the whole universe.

With my Streusel oden cake, the small Streuselchen refine not only from above as a topping, but also from below as a base. That’s really great, because you don’t mix two different types of dough, but a little more of one for the juicy rhubarb crumble cake. It’s a crumble sandwich, if you like. This is the perfect rhubarb crumble cake for me.

Can you prepare the sprinkles in advance?

If you are short on time on the desired rhubarb cake day, you can also make the dough the day before and put it in the fridge overnight. You should only take it out half an hour before processing it and bring it to room temperature.

The cake base

You can also use the crumble dough for the cake base. There is only one small thing to note: In contrast to the crumbles as a topping, which should be light and crumbly, the crumble dough for the simple rhubarb crumble cake is pressed firmly into the springform pan.

You use two thirds of the crumble mixture for the base and one third for the crumble topping. So that the dough really sits firmly in the springform pan, press it into the bottom with a tablespoon.

Important: Compact the crumble mass properly with a spoon, this will result in a firm, compact base. The base is then very crispy and has something of a sweet short crust pastry. The more compact it is, the less it will be softened by the rhubarb.

If the base is too crispy for you, just use a little less flour next time, 250g instead of 300g.

For larger springform pans, you could also increase the amount proportionally and even “pull up” the edge of the cake with the dough.

Prepare rhubarb

For my rhubarb crumble cake, I only wash the rhubarb and don’t peel it. I don’t peel off the outer fibers either. Because if you peel it, it loses its beautiful red color. I haven’t had any negative experiences with the shell or the fibers so far.

To peel rhubarb or not?

Why does the same discussion arise at the beginning of each rhubarb season as to whether or not rhubarb needs to be peeled?

This has to do with the oxalic acid contained in rhubarb. Like spinach or Swiss chard, rhubarb contains a higher concentration of oxalic acid than other vegetables. Even if oxalic acid is produced in your own physical metabolic processes, too much additional oxalic acid can be harmful, because your mineral balance gets out of balance and kidney and bladder stones can form. You should therefore always throw away the leaves of the rhubarb .

However, the amount of oxalic acid that rhubarb stalks contain is usually harmless. When the rhubarb is harvested very early, the concentration of oxalic acid is much lower than when it is harvested later. June 24th is considered the deadline for the end of the rhubarb season.

You should have baked my quick rhubarb cake with crumbles often enough by the end of the local rhubarb season to have plenty of rhubarb cake luck.

You can find more information about rhubarb, when it is in season and when it is available from local cultivation, as well as everything about correct storage, preparation and what else needs to be considered in my rhubarb season calendar:

Process rhubarb

In the rhubarb season, of course, I often have the delicious rhubarb cake with crumble. To take away the acidity of the sour rhubarb, I caramelize the finely chopped pieces of the long rhubarb stalks in a little butter with sugar. For this you need a simple coated pan and sugar.

The caramelization is a short process, because the sugar easily turns dark. So don’t leave the pan alone on the stove, but stir it. Caramelizing gives the tart rhubarb a delicious sweetness and gives it a delicious buttery note. But you can just as easily sugar the rhubarb and let it steep in it.

When the sugar has become liquid and has taken on a nice mélange with the rhubarb, the cornstarch is put on top. You simply add this to the mixture with a tablespoon, stir it up and let it simmer very gently on a low level for 2 minutes. Bind the resulting liquid with the cornstarch.

The “juice” does not have to be poured away, but stays with the rhubarb. So that the rhubarb cake with crumble is nice and moist, but not soggy.

My tip: If you want a clearer vanilla note on the rhubarb, you can also replace the starch with vanilla pudding powder (for cooking).

Rhubarb crumble cake Finale

The Rhubarb Cake with Streusel really is the easiest cake in the world. You will notice this in each of the few steps. When you have poured the amount of rhubarb onto the dough that has been pressed into the springform pan, sprinkle a packet of vanilla sugar over it.

Finally, spread the rest of the dough, the remaining third, in loose, hand-crumbled crumbles, as a topping on the now almost finished cake.

Place the cake in the preheated oven on the middle rack for 45 minutes. With cakes, it is important to always set the oven to top and bottom heat. Never forced air or hot air.

Springform pan or tray for the rhubarb crumble cake

A cake springform pan comes in handy for this type of cake. The rhubarb cake with crumble is easier to cut than, for example, in a tart pan.

You can of course also make the simple rhubarb crumble cake for a deep baking tray (universal tray, external dimensions approx. 45×38 cm) if you want to have a lot of cake. But then you should take the specified amounts of ingredients 2.5 times . Better to use triple the amount of everything for the sake of simplicity. If there is any leftover dough, you can use it for a mini mold or freeze it.

What is the best way to enjoy the rhubarb cake with crumble?

My tip: the cake tastes best when it is lukewarm. For complete enjoyment you can serve whipped cream (with vanilla sugar) or a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Rhubarb and vanilla are an unbeatable duo. In crumble cake rhubarb anyway.

But when cooled, the delicious rhubarb cake with crumble tastes just as good. And even a day later you can still eat it well or offer it to guests. Because the crumbles stay crispy.

If you have any leftovers, you can also freeze the crumble cake with rhubarb. You should defrost it at room temperature and you can put it in the oven for a short time.

The crumble cake for every season

The great thing about this fantastic rhubarb cake recipe is that you can easily replace the rhubarb after the season ends on June 24th. With seasonal fruit.

You can also easily bake the simple crumble cake with pears, apples, plums or quince. Depending on your mood and the season. The procedure is the same: caramelize the fruit in the pan, press the dough firmly into the springform pan. So it’s a crumble cake for almost the whole year ? .