Category: Desserts

Jean’s Rhubarb Bars

Every farm I remember from my childhood had at least a couple of big rhubarb plants in the backyard. Rhubarb used to be called “pie plant” because it makes delicious pies, but it also makes other great desserts from upside down cakes to marmalade. Jean’s rhubarb bars are a good example.

Jerri first had these bars at a funeral luncheon at the New Richmond United Methodist Church. She was so impressed with them that she found who made them and asked for the recipe. Jerri made them, and I loved them too.

However, Jerri has collected a lot of recipes over the years, and since she, like my mother, keeps them in boxes instead of a computer, occasionally a recipe disappears for years. This was the case with Jean’s rhubarb bar recipe. One day a few years ago she announced that she had found it again and would soon make some bars.

Weeks passed. And months. And one beautiful spring day when the rhubarb was beckoning, she discovered that the recipe had vanished once more. A couple of weeks ago when I said that I would really like to make that recipe and share it via the blog, she sat down at the bar with her recipe boxes.

Voilà! The recipe had miraculously reappeared in one of her recipe boxes. The instructions were a little vague but Jerri answered my questions, and the bars were delicious.

Jean died many years ago, but her memory lives with us and her other friends and in her rhubarb bars.

INGREDIENTS:

1 package yellow cake mix
1/2 cup flaked or shredded coconut
1/2 cup butter
3 cups fresh rhubarb
1 cup sugar
3 T flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 large egg
1 cup sour cream

PROCEDURE:

Put the cake mix into a large bowl. Stir the coconut into the mix and use a fork or pastry blender to cut in the butter. Make the crust by pressing the mixture into a nine by thirteen inch ungreased cake pan.

Preheat the oven to 350º and sift the sugar, flour and cinnamon into a small bowl.

Wash the rhubarb and cut the stems into a scant half inch dice. Put the rhubarb into a medium mixing bowl. Mix about three-fourths of the sugar mixture into the rhubarb, reserving a quarter cup to finish the bars. Spoon a layer of rhubarb on the crust.

Beat the egg in a small bowl until it is lemon yellow, then beat in a cup of sour cream. Spread the sour cream evenly over the rhubarb and sprinkle the remaining sugar mixture on top.

Bake for thirty to thirty-five minutes until lightly browned.

NOTES: Do not use a cake mix with pudding in it.

Jean noted that you can also make these bars with prepared pie filling. Use only a half cup of sugar with a teaspoon of cinnamon. Put the pie filling on the crust, spread two-thirds of the sugar over the filling, cover it with the sour cream mixture and sprinkle the remaining sugar on top.

Only the stems of the rhubarb plant are edible (though as someone said, “All foods are edible, but some only once”). The leaves contain poisonous compounds including oxalic acid, although a one hundred forty pound human would have to eat more than ten pounds of rhubarb leaves to consume a lethal dose of the toxin. Actually, rhubarb is cultivated by some cultures for its medical value. Traditional Chinese medicine, for instance, uses rhubarb roots as a laxative.

Pineapple Pie—Always in Season

Not long ago our friend Rich was lamenting the fact that he could no longer find pineapple pie in bakeries. For several years he had been able to buy them from a supermarket in Brainerd when he and his wife vacationed there.

Last year, however, the bakery manager told him that they were no longer making pineapple pies. People like me were probably part of the reason why the store stopped offering them. I have never bought one. I like a lot of different pies—apple, pumpkin, sour cream raisin, cherry, blueberry, lemon, custard, chess, banana cream, and pecan to name a few—but I had never even tasted pineapple pie.

My favorite pies are seasonal treats. Though we can buy frozen sour cherries throughout the year, a cherry pie made with fruit picked the same day tastes better to me than one filled with cherries picked last summer, even if they were flash frozen and packaged with care.

There was a cafe in Saynor, Wisconsin in the early 1960’s that featured a cherry pie that attracted customers from many miles around. If my memory serves me right, the restaurant was called Grandma’s Kitchen. I discovered it my first summer while working at the new radio station, WERL, at Eagle River, Wisconsin. All of us at WERL wore at least two hats that summer. I was both a disc jockey and a sales representative, which is how I discovered this wonderful pie.

I stopped in to sell some advertising and left with a stomach full of the best cherry pie I had ever eaten. The lady who owned Grandma’s Kitchen had a standing order for fresh sour cherries from an orchard in Door county. When the cherries started arriving, she began baking pies. People who knew of her cherry pies would start calling after the Fourth of July to ask if cherry pie was on the menu, and she would share the latest update from the orchard.

I do not have her pie recipe. It was a single crust pie that most cooks would call a tart. When I asked how she made it, she told me she just used fresh sour cherries with a little sugar and thickening. She served it with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream, which added sweetness. It was wonderful.

The secret almost certainly was the fresh cherries. Other fruits with short bearing seasons like blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and rhubarb (if you want to call it a fruit) present the same challenge and opportunity. If you want to make a pie that your guests will rave over, pick a couple of quarts of wild blueberries on a cool morning and bake them into a tender crust in the afternoon.

But I think that some fruits taste as good or better canned than fresh. Pineapple is one of them. I like fresh pineapple, but it irritates my mouth. Fresh pineapple contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down protein. This explains why pineapple tenderizes meat, but it is also the reason why eating fresh pineapple can make your mouth burn.

Canning pineapple destroys the bromelain but preserves the flavor. So when Rich told me about his pineapple pie predicament, I offered to try making one. The result was better than I expected.

Canned pineapple is always in season and even better, you don’t have to pick, peel or chop it to make the filling for a delicious pie. All you need is a can opener and about ten minutes.

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup granulated sugar plus 1 T for garnishing the crust
3 T cornstarch
1 twenty ounce can crushed pineapple in its own juice
1 T lemon juice
1 T milk

PROCEDURE:

First make the dough for a nine-inch double crust pie. Here is a recipe.

Line a nine-inch pie plate with a crust. Preheat the oven to 425º.

Mix the sugar and cornstarch together in a medium saucepan. Stir in the pineapple and the lemon juice. Put the pan over moderate heat and keep stirring the mixture until it thickens and starts to boil. Reduce the heat and continue cooking and stirring for another minute.

Remove the pan from the heat and allow the filling to cool slightly while you roll out the top crust. Pour the hot filling into the pastry-lined plate. Moisten the edge of the bottom crust with a finger dipped in water. Cover the filling with the top crust and seal it to the bottom. Trim and make a decorative edge by pinching the dough with your fingers or using a table fork.

Make a few slits in the top crust to allow steam to escape. Paint the top crust with a little milk and sprinkle it with sugar.

Bake the pie on a center shelf in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes until the crust is lightly browned.

Cool on a rack and serve chilled or at a cool room temperature.