Rhubarb Dream Bars

I grew up with my grandma Lillie baking Rhubarb Custard Pies every Spring/Summer. It quickly became my favorite pie and now that my grandma is gone, eating rhubarb is a very nostalgic experience for me. She shared a house with us and when she passed away I got her studio apartment that we had converted the garage into. This also included a garden out the front door of the apartment that has three rhubarb plants in it. She passed away 2 and half years ago but this is the first Spring that I have harvested the rhubarb.

We are having a potluck at church this Sunday and I wanted to make something that involved the rhubarb. I didn’t want to make a pie as it won’t go as far as other items. So I did a search on www.allrecipes.com. I use this website a lot when looking for recipes. It has a conversion option so you can make something for as many or as few people as you want. It also lets other people make comments on recipes so you can see how it turned out for them. Anyways, while searching I came across this recipe for Rhubarb Dream Bars. They looked good. I decided to do two batches of them for Sunday’s potluck. I made the first batch last night and tried some this morning. THEY ARE WONDERFUL! The second batch is in the oven.

The recipe that I got from All Recipes is below. Just a few notes though. Because I didn’t have enough butter at home I used a ½ Cup Butter and ½ Cup Shortening. Of course, that turned out just fine. For the topping, I used all 3 cups of sugar the first time but it was really sweet. For the second batch I am only using 2 ½ Cups. I ended up having to bake it for 55 minutes because at 35 minutes it was still really runny. So set it for 35 minutes and then check on it every 5 minutes. Also I cut it into 21 (3×7) bars instead of 15 (3×5). Enjoy!

Rhubarb Dream Bars

Ingredients:

CRUST-
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 cup butter, softened

TOPPING-
3 cups white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
4 eggs, beaten
4 1/2 cups chopped fresh rhubarb

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a medium bowl, mix together 2 cups of flour, confectioners’ sugar and butter until it forms a dough, or at least the butter is in small crumbs.
Press into the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish. (Spray the dish with PAM before putting the crust in)
Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven.
While this bakes, whisk together the white sugar, salt, flour and eggs in a large bowl.
Stir in rhubarb to coat.
Spread evenly over the baked crust when it comes out of the oven.
Bake for another 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until rhubarb is tender.
Cool and cut into squares to serve.

Serves 15.

Pound Cake

Before this past weekend I had never successfully made a cake from scratch. I had planned on serving Strawberry Shortcake at a retreat this past weekend but didn’t want to use the usual white cake or the nasty sponge cake. I thought a pound cake sounded like a good alternative. Well, I made it and it was a big hit! So, I thought I would share the recipe with you!

Ingredients:

2 ½ Cups Sugar
1 Cup Butter, softened
1 Teaspoon Almond Extract
5 Large Eggs
3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
¼ Teaspoon Salt
1 Cup Evaporated Milk

Directions:

Heat oven to 350-degrees. Grease bottom and side of 2 loaf pans, 9×5x3 inches, with shortening and then lightly flour.
Beat sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly. Beat on high speed for 5 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.
Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.
Beat flour mixture into sugar mixture alternately with the milk on low speed, beating just until smooth after each addition. Pour into pans.
Bake for 55 to 60 minutes. You will know it is done by inserting a toothpick and having it come out clean.
Cool 20 minutes and then remove from pan and place on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours.

Now, you can serve this with strawberries and cool whip like I did. Another option is to sprinkle powdered sugar on it and serve just as it is.

Cooking Tip (a.k.a. Confession Time): I always completely read the directions. It was only until now that I see that I was supposed to use two loaf pans and not one. Now I know why it got so high in the pan and took longer to bake! Oh well!