Rhubarb Recipes

Preparing strawberry-rhubarb pie today.

The season is turning, even though a spate of rainy days has kept off some of the expected summer heat. I'm glad there's still rhubarb to harvest -- it's the first crop of spring, most years, and doesn't always last all that long! Weather and "pests" (like snails) can easily take it out of commission.

Today is a strawberry-rhubarb pie day here, which reminds me that I promised to post rhubarb recipes after the local "Historical House & Garden and Rhubarb Café" event had concluded. (People who attended were offered a lovely booklet of the recipes!) So here are some to enjoy.

CHOCOLATE RHUBARB BROWNIES

Best if cut only as small as 9 servings, but we managed 25 for the event!

• 1 cup sugar
• ½ cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ½ cup unbleached flour
• ⅓ cup cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon espresso powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup rhubarb, diced small
• ½ cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375. Lightly grease an 8 x 8 inch baking pan.

In a medium-sized bowl whisk together the sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla. In a large bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, espresso powder, and sea salt.

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix them until they are just incorporated. Add the rhubarb and chocolate chips and mix until they are combined. The batter will be quite thick.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and spread it out so that it is even in the pan. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or just until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Be careful not to overcook the brownies so they don't dry out! Cool completely before cutting. 

FROSTED RHUBARB COOKIES

Maked 5 dozen. I baked and froze mine a week ahead of time, then frosted them on the day I wanted to serve them.

Preheat oven to 350º. Lightly grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Stir together:

3 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

Cream together in a large bowl:

¼ cup (1/2 stick) softened butter

¾ cup shortening

1½ cups firmly packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

Add flour mix to sugar/shortening/egg mix and stir well.

Stir in:

¾ cup flaked coconut

1½ cups diced fresh rhubarb (diced small)

Drop by tablespoonfuls onto baking sheets. Bake 12-15 minutes. Cool on rack.

Frost when cool.

Frosting

Beat together:

3 ounces cream cheese, softened

1 Tbsp butter, softened

3 tsp vanilla extract

1½ cups confectioner’s sugar

RHUBARB PUNCH

Cut in small pieces 3 pounds rhubarb (should make 2 dry quarts).

Add 2 quarts water and cook until fruit is soft. Drain through double layer of cheesecloth -- you will find a lovely pink juice released from the "green" mash!

Add 3 cups sugar and bring to a boil. Add 1 cup orange juice and 1/2 cup lemon juice.

Chill. Measure, and add equal volume of chilled ginger ale -- or for a lower sugar version, use a sparkling water like Perrier. Serve with crushed ice.

Jean's Chewy Maple Cookies

Left side, cut with pizza cutter! Right side, recipe working much better.

My good friend Jean shared her recipe yesterday for Chewy Maple Cookies -- yumm! Baking them today, I used the "very strong dark" maple syrup that Goodrich's Maple Farm in Cabot, Vermont, provides for cooks. I also tried substituting whole wheat flour for part of the white flour in the original recipe -- not a success at first, as the whole wheat flour didn't absorb the liquid, and the cookies spread into a sheet of cooked dough on the (parchment-lined) pan. A few quick strokes with the pizza cutter turned things back into snack form, but I still wanted the cookie shape, so with the other half of the dough I raised the amount of flour.

Here's my final "revised" version -- and Jean, thank you very much!

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.

Stir together:
1-1/2 (one and one half) cups unbleached flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
dash salt
1 cup finely chopped walnuts (I put the regular chopped ones in a small plastic bag and run the rolling pin over them a couple of times to make them finer)

In a large bowl, beat with hand mixer:
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup dark maple syrup (if you can't get dark, use light but add Jean's extra ingredient: 1/2 tsp maple flavoring)

Stir in dry ingredients. Drop dough by generous teaspoonfuls onto parchment-lined or greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes. Makes about 4 dozen.

Oatmeal Cookies with Dark Chocolate Chips OR with (2018 Update) Rhubarb

Had a request today for this recipe, and it's worth sharing it -- it's based on the back-of-the-box recipe from Quaker Oats, but I've been adapting it to my taste (and cupboard) for the past 35 years. When I learned that "brown sugar" in stores was actually just white sugar with molasses added, I changed the recipe to reflect this -- and not pay the higher price of brown sugar! I've found different kinds of rolled oats ("quick" or 5-minute or health-food-store organic) make different textures of the cookie. Lately I use the health-food-store organic, because it's what I have in the house, but I think the recipe sometimes works better with the 5-minute type -- sort of halfway between the textures of the organic and the "quick." And for the chocolate chips, my own taste now is suited best by the Ghirardelli "60% cocoa" bittersweet chips, not as sweet, but I've made plenty of batches of cookies with Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips.

You can vary this by adding coarsely chopped walnuts, or dried cranberries (about half a cup of either one), or you can use raisins; if you do raisins and chocolate chips together, it tastes terrific. If you do raisins without chocolate, add a teaspoon of cinnamon to the flour. UPDATE, May 2018: Add 2 cups of finely chopped (but not crushed; a quarter inch is good) fresh rhubarb if you like! But this version needs to be eaten within a day or so, because the rhubarb has so much moisture.

And definitely, you can make the recipe without the chocolate chips, for plain oatmeal cookies. I've tried whole wheat flour in it and find the cookies get too heavy, but it's worth experimenting if that's what you like. And oh yes, ALL flour varies, even from day to day, so if your first pan of cookies all sort of "melt flat" and come out too thin, add another 2 tablespoons of flour to the remaining dough before making the next pan of them.

           Beth's Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Preheat the oven to 350º and grease two large cookie sheets. (I now use the insulated cookie sheets; if you don't have them and you are using thin metal, you might try 325º instead and add 2 minutes longer cooking. That's what I used to do. And you can avoid greasing the cookie sheets if you use parchment paper on them.)

Mix together in a large bowl, using a wooden spoon:

3/4 cup vegetable shortening (like Crisco)
1-1/4 (that's one and a quarter) cups sugar
2 eggs
2 Tablespoons molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix in a small bowl:
1-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda

Dump the flour into the shortening/sugar mix, and mix until mostly blended. Add:

2-1/2 cups rolled oats
6 ounces (half a large pack, or an entire small pack) chocolate chips (and see above for other additions)

Spoon onto the cookie sheets, about a tablespoon of dough per cookie, with an inch and a half between cookies.

Bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Remove from cookie sheets right away and cool on racks. (If you don't have cookie cooling racks, or you're not sure you'll have time or energy to take the cookies off the cookie sheets right away, try using "parchment paper" on your cookie pans, instead of greasing them with shortening. Then you can lift the whole sheet of paper off at once, with all the cookies, and set this to cool on a countertop or table. I try to keep some around, now that I've found out how handy it is.)

That's it! Have fun.