Rhubarb Season!

I love rhubarb. My mother-in-law used to have a big rhubarb patch; the stalks were green, not red, but they were delicious nonetheless. Every year we’d go up to visit in June, and I’d come home with gallon bags of cleaned, chopped rhubarb—my father-in-law did the prep work for me. The rhubarb patch is long gone, but usually I can find someone in the neighborhood willing to part with a few stalks so I can make my favorite rhubarb bread. This quick bread is rich and comforting, with a spark of tartness in just about every bite. It has a sweetly spiced crumbly topping that’s better than icing. Rhubarb bread is excellent plain, toasted and buttered, with strawberry jam, or a smear of cream cheese. This recipe makes 2 large loaves of quick bread—one to share and one to keep. This bread can be frozen, tightly wrapped, for 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator.

Never had rhubarb? It’s a crispy stalk, like celery, but it tastes very much like a tart apple, if by tart you mean “pretty ding danged sour.” It has a lot of moisture, so it cooks down a lot; if you’re making rhubarb pie or cobbler, mound it up! There’s no difference between the red and the green varieties, taste-wise, but the red is much more attractive. The leaves are poisonous, so don’t get creative and try to cook them up.

Rhubarb Bread—makes 2 large loaves. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together and set aside: 2 1/2 C flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt.

Beat 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar with 2/3 cup of oil until well blended and homogenous. Beat in 2 eggs, one at a time.

Stir in 1 cup of buttermilk and a generous teaspoon of vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined; don’t overmix. There may be a dry spot or two, that’s fine.. Stir in 1 1/2 cups of rhubarb that you’ve washed and chopped into 1/2” pieces. You can add 3/4 cup of chopped walnuts if you’d like. Divide batter evenly between 2 greased 9”x 5” loaf pans.

Topping: Blend together until crumbly: 1/2 cup soft butter, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts if you want to add them, and 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon. Sprinkle half of the topping on each loaf.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick poked into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10-15 minutes on a rack, then tip out of the pans and continue to cool almost completely before slicing.

Enjoy every bite!