Rhubamisu

One of my most favourite things in the world is rhubarb. I have always loved it. There’s something special for me in those tart, pink stalks and when the season is upon us I can’t get enough of the stuff.

Naturally we’ve tried to grow it. When you’ve got a habit like mine it can get horribly expensive relying on commercial sources for your fix, to say nothing of frustrating at this end of an unreliable remote food chain. For the true addict this simply doesn’t work. We must secure our own supply.

The first attempt to grow our own rhubarb failed a few years ago after a summer storm battered our young plants to death, flattening them completely. They never recovered.

Undeterred, I bought new rhubarb crowns and replanted. It’s a slow process, much like asparagus - they grow very sedately and to ensure their establishment the advice is only to take a few stalks off the plant in the first two years. For an instant whip person such as myself, this is sheer torture.

We’re in year two with the new plants and so far they’re doing well. We carefully pulled one or two stalks from each plant yesterday, our first proper haul. The plants are strong and healthy, the stalks thick and raspberry red. What riches! The leaves are so large and stiff that I fight the urge to make sun umbrellas from them every time we pick.

Once trimmed and chopped we had just over a kilo of useable rhubarb from this picking. Enough for a pudding, some puréed fruit for breakfast and some cordial. I’ll freeze later pickings but the promise of fresh rhubarb was just too great to resist.

I decided to make rhubamisu. You know tiramisu, right? Layers of sponge fingers dipped in coffee and sandwiched together with mascarpone cream? This is the same. It’s layers of lemon sponge (leftover from the lemon drizzle bake earlier today) drizzled with rhubarb juice and sandwiched together with softly cooked rhubarb and marscapone cream.

It’s for dinner tonight with fellow friends and crofters so I’ll let you know how it tastes. I should have put it in a pretty glass bowl and dressed it elegantly, but the excitement was too great for faffing so it’s been made in an old enamel tin that was to hand, and looks a bit slapdash.

But who cares. It’s homegrown rhubarb!