Rhubarb Shortcake: Rhu-Tang, Rhu-Tang, Rhu-Tang, Rhu-Taaaaaang!!!

 

Rhubarb is a criminally underrated ingredient.  In my experience, it is almost always found in conjunction with strawberry, in a pie.  It is, however, a worthy dessert ingredient all on its own.  It is in the same class as gooseberries, meaning that it's one of the ingredients that, if you tasted it on its own, you'd never peg it for dessert, but when you add a shitload of sugar, everything comes into focus.

This is an original dessert, but I used several different sources to get here. 

The Shortcake

The 'shortcake' itself is a scone from The River Cottage Bread Handbook.  There will be more discussion of this recipe in my upcoming review of that book, but for now, just know it's a very, very good scone recipe.  A more interesting question is: are scones shortcake?  I say why not?  In the south, we usually use biscuits, but I have seen awesome shortcakes made from sponge cake.  (Especially Shereee McDowel's strawberry shortcake from the Woodlands, which was a sponge base inside a white chocolate collar, made by creating a cylinder of tempered white chocolate with acetate, topped with a strawberry bavaroise, and then macerated strawberries on top of that.  Outstanding!  One day I shall recreate it, once I get comfortable with tempering white chocolate.). But at any rate, the very, very biscuit-like R.C.B.H. scone fills the bill.  The only downside (which is also a downside of any biscuit-type shortbread) is that it needs to be fresh baked, but cool, which gives you a window of about an hour.  However, if I can pull this balancing act off at Commander's Palace, selling 200 of the fuckin' things, you can get this right at dinner.

Recipe: Scones (adapted from River Cottage, but tweaked for reasons that will be expanded upon in the upcoming book review)

1# AP Flour
3 t baking powder
fat 3-finger pinch of salt
115g butter
180 mL heavy cream
75g sugar
1 egg plus one yolk
1.5 t. vanilla extract
milk and turbinado sugar, as needed

1) Pulse the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and butter in the food processor.

2) Whisk the vanilla, cream, and egg

3) Mix the wet and dry until they start to come together, less than 10 seconds

4) Using floured hands on a floured surface, form the dough into a patty about an inch and a half thick

5) Using a 2" ring cutter, and pressing straight down, punch out shortcakes

6) You can form the scraps together into extra shortcakes, but don't knead them again.  They will look a little busted, but cook up fine.

7) Brush the tops with milk, and sprinkle with turbinado sugar (and no, there's none in the pic, but it would have been nice)

8) Bake at 390F, on a buttered silpat, for about 20 minutes, till a toothpick comes out clean

And again, let them cool, but not too long.  You should bake these about an hour before you want to serve them, not before.

The Filling

The filling comes from a recipe from Saveur #33, from way back in 1998.  There was a strawberry shortcake recipe that, frankly, looked pretty banged up.  I didn't trust the sauce, I didn't trust the biscuits, and there was no cream or ice cream, but at the end of the recipe, they gave a recipe for rhubarb filling, and I thought I'd give it a go.

*A note on peeling rhubarb: now my peeler sucks, so your mileage may vary, but I found that using a peeler was a frustrating mess.  I had good results with using a tourner knife and just pulling the peel off in strips.  Then, when the fibrous stuff is off, you can use the back edge of the knife to scrape any remnants away.  

Recipe: Rhubarb Shortcake Filling

1 pint peeled rhubarb, cut ~1/3 inch thick
1/2 cup sugar
Splash framboise or other raspberry liquor (don't buy a bottle just for this, it's fine without it)

1) Toss all ingredients together

2) Bake at 350F, on a silpat, for 20 minutes, or till tender

The Mousse

This recipe is adapted from a Wisconsin Dairy Association cookbook from 1965 that I inherited from my 180-year-old grandmother.  There will be a full review forthcoming.  Anyway, like all 60's, junior league-type cookbooks, the recipe was like 25 words when 200 would have been better.  For example, it started with '1 cup cooked, mashed rhubarb', with no insight on how to cook or mash a rhubarb.  I'm sure a sixties housewife from Wisconsin knows how to mash a rhubarb, but I don't, and I've worked at the Michelin-star level.  So here is a rewritten recipe, one that's actually usable by humans.

Recipe: Rhubarb Mousse

1 heaping quart chopped rhubarb
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup sugar
splash vanilla
a few grinds of fresh nutmeg

1) Put the rhubarb in a saucepan with about an inch of water.  It doesn't need to be enough to cover.  Rhubarb breaks down FAST.

2) Cook the rhubarb till it falls apart.  Then babysit it till it cooks down to a pink puree.  Stir it constantly with a rubber, heatproof spatula.  It should be starting to catch on the sides, and be just over a cup.

3) Pass it through a tammis, pump it through a choinois, or (if you, like me, have no good tools at your house) spend 20 minutes putting it through a flimsy basket strainer with a ladel and a rubber spatula, cursing the whole time.  This should yield about a cup.

4) While it's still warm, whisk the sugar into the rhubarb puree.  Add the vanilla and nutmeg.

5) Whip the cream

6) Fold the cream into the rhubarb, and pour it into a cold bowl.  Place it in the freezer.

7) Wait 2-4 hours, and you've got a nice frozen mousse

To Assemble:

Split a scone.  Spoon a lot of the filling on and around the bottom half, taking care to soak the bottom of the scone with syrup.  Spoon the syrup around, as well.  Scoop a quenelle (or something, you know, a blob) of the mousse on top, and top it with the scone's top half.  

The take-away

It came out pretty awesome!   I'm not 100% sure how the rhubarb mousse would work out in a restaurant.  It got pretty icy overnight.  It really worked as a mostly-frozen thing.  But taking that rhubarb puree and making it into the base for a bavarian or a semifreddo would probably work just fine!  At any rate, it was a super-cool dessert.  It's interesting to take strawberry out of the strawberry-rhubarb equation.  A lot of people don't even know what rhubarb contributes to the party, they are so used to having it with strawberries.  Like Jeffrey Steingarten said, 'promiscuous use of cinnamon has made us forget the taste of apples.'  Or like I always say, promiscuous use of cheese has made us forget the taste of ground beef.  Let's never be afraid to recontextualize classic flavors!  Sometimes you don't even know what you're holding!

-JS