We were getting ready to head up North for Memorial Weekend this year and my rhubarb plant was going crazy! Growing up my mom had 2 rhubarb plants, one and home and one at their business. And they were both relatively small. We’d make a couple desserts with the rhubarb each year but were never struggling to figure out ideas of what to do with all the rhubarb. So when my mother-in-law offered to give me a cutting of her rhubarb the year after we bought our house, I figured why not. Then it grew into this monster!
Apparently we have a little better soil down here or it gets better light where I put it, or something. I should also mention that my mother-in-laws rhubarb plant was larger than my mom’s but still not this big. Anyway, it’s not really a bad problem to have as there are lots of delicious ways to solve it. I knew I should probably pick some and make something with it while we were gone for the weekend. Since we had a lot on our agenda to do in Ely, I wanted something easy that I could whip together real quick. This is what I ended up making:
I don’t remember where the recipe came from originally, or maybe I never knew. All I know is this is one of those recipes my mom would make every year from our rhubarb at home. It’s kind of a cross between a bar and a crumble, since there is a crust layer and a crumble layer on top. But you can’t pick it up and eat it like a bar. So I just call it a dessert.
Here’s what you need:
Start by greasing a 9×13 pan. Then just dump that whole box of cake mix in the bottom of the pan. This reminds me of the trend of dump cakes that’s going on right now – going to have to try those sometime.
Now you’ll want to top the cake mix with your rhubarb, try to get a relatively even layer.
Sprinkle on the strawberry jello.
Now it’s time to make the crumble topping. I start with softened butter. Add sugar and flour to it. Then mash it together with a fork, within a couple minutes it should come together in a nice crumble.
Sprinkle this all over the rhubarb.
Now bake it in a 350 degree oven for about 30-35 minutes until lightly golden.
I like it best warm with cool-whip on top. But we took some cold out to our deer shack and had it there over the weekend too – it’s hard to beat.
For those of you with rhubarb plants, I hope this gives you one more tasty idea of what to do with your rhubarb. Since I made this, I’ve made strawberry rhubarb sauce/syrup and strawberry-rhubarb frozen greek yogurt AND I it doesn’t look like I’ve made a dent in the plant! I’ll share those recipes with you soon.
- 1 box yellow cake mix
- 4 c chopped rhubarb
- 1 – 3 oz package strawberry jello
- 1 c flour
- 1 c sugar
- ½ c butter, softened
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9x13 pan.
- Dump the cake mix into the pan and spread out evenly. Top with chopped rhubarb and sprinkle with jello.
- Blend together flour, sugar, and butter with a fork until crumbly. Sprinkle over the top.
- Bake for 30-35 minutes.
- Serve warm with Cool-Whip (or whipped cream).
I baked this today and there was not enough moisture for the cake on the bottom to cook it was dry powder on the bottom. What should I do to fix?
Hi Dre. A little bit of powder on the bottom is ok, but it sounds like you had more than that. Did you use a 9×13 pan? If not, the layer of cake mix was likely too thick. Otherwise, my thought is the rhubarb didn’t cook long enough to render enough moisture you could try baking for a little bit longer. If the top was already as done as you want it the next thing I would try is lowering the oven temp and cooking for a longer time. Some oven cook hotter than others and if yours is generally hotter than mine that could play a part. My last suggestion, although this sort of defies the ‘dump’ cake method is to sprinkle the jello on the rhubarb and let it sit for 15 to 20 minutes before you add to the pan. This will macerate the rhubarb and allow it to start releasing moisture that should jump start getting the moisture into the cake batter without adding any additional sugar to the recipe. Just make sure to scrape in all the moisture from the bowl if you try this. Good luck!