Local rhubarb is on season now.
Although I didn’t know about this vegetable till I moved to the UK, I adopted the love for it. The flavour is very special, and I love the fact that rhubarb is Spring thing.
Since my local veg shop started to sell it, I already bought it twice and eaten them as crumble and pie. I’d like to post about rhubarb pie sometime soon, but this is my 60th post and it’s Friday! So here, I’d like to present something a bit different I made with rhubarb.
Rhubarb and white chocolate gateau.
A birthday cake for a friend of mine.
My friends, who may be reading this and may be thinking “I didn’t get that big flower on my birthday cake she made me!”, there is a reason why I made this cake for her.
She has relatives in Australia, and she travels there once in a while to see them. Last time she came back, she told me that her Aussie relative or friend’s step-daughter is a very famous pâtissier in Australia, Kirsten Tibballs, and my friend’s relative or friend was so lucky to try out all the beautiful cakes and chocolate she made for her new book.
Well, anything to do with chocolate and cakes, I am interested. We checked on line, and found her book, “Chocolate to Savour”. It was a huge book with quite huge price tag.
It sat on my Amazon wish list for sometime, till I nudged my lovely husband to check my wish list prior to his Christmas shopping.
Now, my lovely lovely husband got me that book for Christmas, I adored all the picture in her book. Oh, her cakes and chocolate are so beautiful.
That’s the reason; I wanted to make a cake inspired by this book for my friend who introduced me to it.
As I said “inspired”, this is not the cake she wrote in the book. I used her recipe for white chocolate mousse and graze from the book.
Original recipe I was interested was a square cake called ‘EVE’ on her book, not another EVE cake she made for Masterchef (If you search her name and Eve, Masterchef’s one came up, but not that one).
It contained coconuts dacquise, white chocolate mousse, raspberry jelly and kaffir lime cream and white chocolate graze with white chocolate flower.
My cake here is (from bottom)
almond dacquise with ground ginger
white chocolate mousse (from her book)
rhubarb puree jelly
crystallised ginger cube in white chocolate mouse above
rhubarb jelly (with bits of rhubarb)
white chocolate graze (from her book with a bit of alteration)
rhubarb ribbon
white chocolate flower
(Sorry, I cannot put the recipe here, just bit too much. But hope above list give you an idea.)
It was very creamy and sweet. Rhubarb gave lovely tang and ginger was classic match for rhubarb.
The flower was a bit too big and a bit messy, but it was my first try to make chocolate flower this way, so I should say it was fine. It gave a ‘wow’ as a birthday cake should.
Happy birthday to my friend.
and Happy Fiesta Friday!
(April 2014)
Looks like you spend all day in the kitchen – very impressive, and surely delicious! Love rhubarb combined with really sweet ingredients.
Oh yes, I spend hours at it (not all day, as I got kids, but all evening while kids in bed!), but it was nice project to work on, as my cat is missing for a week now, and the cake took my mind off.
hope your cat has just decided to have a little holiday on his or her own and will be back soon!
Beautiful cake and that flower is awe inspiring! Sounds delicious too. My grandmother grew rhubarb in her garden and I can still smell a rhubarb pie cooling on the kitchen counter…yum.
Thank you, Nancy. How nice to have a memory like that. I have given home-grown rhubarb from a couple of people before, sadly both of them past away now, their memories also stay with me with rhubarb.
Oh, I just have to tell you that I am drooling! Your cake looks divine and I hope your friend knows just how lucky she is to get a special cake like this one for her birthday!
Thank you, julianna. She was delighted to see the cake and chat about her relations in Australia, so I was very pleased. 🙂
What a beautiful cake. Your friend must have been thrilled. Cakes like this don’t happen that often in my experience, but when they do you remember them as an event, not just a dessert. Congratulations on your creation.
Thank you for your kind word, Hilda. I just wanted to try something I saw in the book, and it was great to see my birthday friend being excited about it. 🙂
Will you please make me this cake if I pretend it’s my birthday, too? Pretty please? You are incredible, Weebirdie!!
Oh yes, Patty, if you make us that creamy pasta of yours or some of your lovely dish, I’ll make cakes for you! 😉
Sounds like a deal to me!!
You friend is so lucky, this cake is absolutely amazing 🙂
Thank you, Linda! My friends and my husband like it a lot, so worth an effort. 🙂
Stunning, i love rhubarb but have never used it in a cake !
Do you usually do pie or crumble wit rhubarb? I love them all!!
Both! Icecream and custard too!
Fabulous!! (((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))
Love white chocolate!!
Thank you, Rika-chan. I don’t usually like white chocolate, to be honest, but the combination with rhubarb was great! 🙂 Original recipe was with raspberry, and raspberry season is right on for your birthday!
Wow! What an amazing cake. Both the presentation and the list of layers is outstanding!
Thank you, Ngan. There are many layers, but the combination was classic; rhubarb and ginger, sweet and tangy. And white chocolate mousse was good match as rhubarb goes well with custard. 🙂
What a beautiful cake!
Thank you!
Wow, that is such a beautiful cake and so complex with all of those separate elements… I love anything rhubarb-y so I’m sure I’d love this.
Thank you, Allison. Oh yes, if you like rhubarb, you’ll definitely like this. 🙂 Nice to meet you. 🙂
Nice to meet you, too! 🙂 I am a huge fan of rhubarb. It’s only * just * started showing up here for the beginning of its season… I haven’t bought any yet, but I’m already daydreaming about all of the ways I can use it!
Wow!! That white chocolate flower looks amazing! And all those layers? I’m so in awe of your patisserie skills and patience. The idea of pairing rhubarb with white chocolate is a very attractive one, their flavours would complement very well. Great work, your friend is very lucky, and I’ll also check out the book. 🙂
Thank you for your kind comment. It was first time I combined rhubarb and white chocolate, but it worked! It was very nice, even I usually doesn’t like white chocolate so much. Yes, do check her book and website, you’ll find some amazing things. 🙂
Wow that looks like such a complex cake with so many parts and you brought it all together so beautifully! Amazing and you are such a good friend 🙂
Wow… absolutely gorgeous!! Look at that flower… I’m so impressed, and the ingredients just work together so beautifully… I never would have thought to put rhubarb in a cake. I’ve always thought of it in a pie. Wonderful post!
A stunning cake with the flower on top and then to look inside, oh my! Rhubarb in a cake is new for me but I bet it paired well with the white chocolate 🙂
Weebirdie, this is too beautiful for words! You’ve outdone yourself, hon! Bravo!
Thank you, Angie! I wanted to try out recipes of this book, so it was good opportunity to do it. Although I didn’t follow exact recipe, my friend was very happy with the cake and that I used the book. 🙂
Congratulations on your Fiesta Friday feature Weebirdie! I think this cake had everyone in awe of it’s beauty 🙂
Thank you, Nancy! I was very chuffed to be on the FF feature!
To die for! Love how talented, creative and meticulous you are!
Thank you, Stacey. It was a bit of effort, but I think it worth it, as my friend loved it 🙂