A lovely rhubarb crumble cake, filled with fresh (or frozen) rhubarb and has a delicious and unique crumble topping.
Why I Love this Rhubarb Crumble Cake
This is really a lovely rhubarb cake and a great way to use your Spring rhubarb, but it is also a great way to enjoy all the Summer fruit, simply by changing up the fruit. This cake is versatile.
Secondly, this cake has a really unique crumble topping and one that I think any baker would love to “discover” (if you haven’t already), because it’s one of those baking things that you can tuck away and use on other cakes or coffee cakes.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Rhubarb – You can make this crumble cake with fresh rhubarb or frozen rhubarb. For frozen rhubarb, use from frozen. No need to thaw. If starting with frozen rhubarb, allow a little extra baking time for your cake, as the cold rhubarb cools the batter and slows baking a bit.
Brown sugar This recipe specifies light brown or “golden” sugar. If you only have dark brown or old-fashioned brown sugar, you can use that without issue. Your cake crumb with be a touch darker.
Baker’s Tips
- The cake itself is what I would call almost a pound cake, but not quite as dense. It’s a lightly sweet cake and buttery. It’s a great base cake for rhubarb and just about any fruit, for that matter.
- This cake takes a while to bake! Mine took almost 1 hour and 30 minutes. Yours may take more or less than that. This is the kind of cake where you should start testing it about the one hour mark and then just keep cooking and testing until it’s done, however long that takes
- So I mentioned the unique crumble topping above and what makes it unique is that it’s not what you might expect by looking it. It’s not a brown sugar/butter topping. It’s made from a small amount of the cake batter, that gets mixed up with some cinnamon and some more flour, forming into a crumble mixture. As such, it delivers the crunchy, crumble, without adding a layer of butter and sugar on top. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s just that sometimes it’s nice to enjoy a cake that’s not all that.
- The above note is also why there is a sprinkling of sugar on top (and you thought it was just sugar on sugar :) I used white sugar on top, but I think brown sugar would have been a nice choice, too. You can use either.
- This cake will keep well on the counter (well wrapped) for several days or you can also freeze it for up to 3 months.
Top Tip
While I made this as a rhubarb cake, this cake would be equally nice with just about any fruit. Try it with blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, peaches, apples and more.
Get the Recipe: Rhubarb Crumble Cake
Ingredients
Cake Batter:
- 1 cup + 2 Tbsp salted butter, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, or vanilla bean paste
- 5 large eggs
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 cups rhubarb, fresh or frozen, diced
Topping:
- 7 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Before baking:
- 1 Tablespoon light brown or white sugar, or white sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325F. (regular bake/not fan assisted). Grease and 8-inch springform pan and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.
- In a large bowl with an electric mixer, or in a the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl several times, as needed. Add the flour and mix, just until combined.
- Remove 1/4 cup of the batter to a small bowl. Add the 7 Tbsp flour and 1 tsp cinnamon and stir together using a dinner knife, until it becomes a crumbly mixture. Set aside.
- Fold the rhubarb into the rest of the cake batter, then spoon the batter into the prepared springform pan, spread to the sides and level the top. Evenly scatter the crumble mixture over-top of the batter, then sprinkle the top with 1 Tbsp of light brown sugar (or white sugar).
- Bake in preheated oven for about 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes, but check and test regularly after the 1 hour mark and cover the top loosely with a sheet of aluminum foil if the top of the cake is browning too quickly. Bake until a tester comes out clean, as long as that takes. (*If starting with frozen rhubarb, cooking time will be slightly longer).
- Remove from oven and cool for 15 minutes in the tin, then remove from pan and cool completely on a cooling rack.
Notes
More Rhubarb Cake Recipes to Love!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have any trouble storing this one. It wouldn’t last past 24 hours in my house! And I would probably eat most of it. Crumble cake is appropriate for breakfast, right!? ;)
Thanks Leanne and absolutely crumble cake is a breakfast food :)
I dub thee Rhubarb Queen! Loving everything about this….especially that crumble! ;)
Thanks Annie :)
I love this recipe and I can see myself giving it a try with peaches, too. The crumble is so easy to make – love your creativity!
Thanks so much, Milena! It would be great with peaches :)
This is my kinda cake Jennifer! Love that rhubarb and I’d never pass up anything with a crumble topping! Well done my friend!
Thanks so much, Mary Ann :)
Love the cinnamon crumble! And love the main ingredient – rhubarb! This would be so lovely with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream right about now :)
Thanks so much, Dawn and yes, ice cream is always a good idea :)
This looks spectacular! Such a unique crumble topping, I love it!
Thanks Chris! In all my years of baking, I’ve never made a crumble that way, but it was delicious and easy and I’m totally going to use that elsewhere :)
You know this is my kind of cake! Looks like you are making the best of your garden fresh rhubarb – wish I had some right now so I could make this lovely cake. Love the crumble top too!
Thanks Tricia and yes, lots of rhubarb here. This cake would be great with strawberries, as well (and other Summer fruits).