Rhubarb and maybe some custard

I have an extremely large rhubarb plant in the garden, seriously, it's a giant. M hates it, I think it's the rhubarb's uncontrollable growth that gets him. He's always looking out the window grumbling about 'that  b****y rhubarb'. There's a distinct difference in our gardening styles, M's being of the more 'slash and burn' or 'cut it right back' variety (I can't leave him unattended with the secateurs) whilst I'm more 'let nature reign' or 'that might be some creature's house' (so between us, the garden remains in reasonable shape). I have a soft spot for the rhubarb and love the way it bursts forth every spring, the first thing in the garden to show life. It's rumoured to be nearly a hundred years old and whilst I take this myth with a hefty pinch of salt, our lovely neighbour, Eileen (who was born in our house), remembers her father tending to it and she's 88, so you never know. It's not the sort of produce you buy regularly unless you have a specific recipe but if you happen to have one in your garden or allotment you'll be finding plenty of uses for it, as it's so prolific and a rhubarb crumble with some proper custard forms a quick and easy dessert. More often I simply stew a few stalks with some honey and orange juice to have with plain yoghurt for work day breakfasts.

Something I've been meaning to try for sometime is a rhubarb gin, another variant of the flavoured spirit I seem to make a lot of (!). I'm hoping this will be tart and fresh and a perfect tipple for early summer, served ice cold straight from the freezer. This will be a real experiment, so no recipe as yet (let's wait and see if this is a success first).

I half filled a litre Kilner jar with sliced rhubarb, about 5 tbsp caster sugar and topped up with 750ml of gin. I'm considering adding a vanilla pod for a touch of 'custard' but will wait for an early testing first. As my rhubarb is outdoor grown it's much more green than the bright red of forced rhubarb and I think the resulting liqueur will be a pale flamingo pink rather than a more kitsch vibrant hue. I'm aiming to leave it a few weeks before straining and bottling (and of course, sampling).

I used the leftover rhubarb that couldn't be squashed into the gin experiment for a cake. I've made this cake a number of times, the recipe is from a magazine cutting from long ago (I can no longer remember the name of the original source). It's incredibly simple to make, very pretty and even confirmed rhubarb-sceptics (including M) love it.

Rhubarb and almond cake

175g softened unsalted butter

175g golden caster sugar

3 eggs

125g self-raising flour

50g ground almonds

50g flaked almonds

600g rhubarb (approx 4-5 stalks), sliced into chunks

50g demerara sugar

icing sugar

Heat the oven to 180℃ and butter and line a loose bottomed 20cm diameter cake tin. Beat together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy and then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Sift in the flour, add the ground almonds, half the flaked almonds, mix together well and spoon into the prepared cake tin.

Mix the rhubarb pieces with the demerara sugar and flaked almonds and pour the mix on top of the cake batter in the tin. It will look a lot but don't worry!

Bake the cake for 45 minutes at 180℃ then turn the temperature down to 150℃ and cook for another 45 minutes. If, like mine your cake tin has a gap or two, put a baking tray under the tin in case there is any excess liquid from the rhubarb.

Remove the cake from the oven and cool for at least 30 minutes in the tin before removing. When it has completely cooled, dust with a little icing sugar and serve with some crème fraȋche, vanilla ice cream or a little custard!