When rhubarb is in season, Pork Belly goes crazy in the kitchen, but he loves to make more than traditional crumbles and pies.
Like the white knight in Alice Through the Looking Glass, he’s come up with an “It’s my own invention” vegan rhubarb and almond cake.
Most recipes choose to add uncooked rhubarb to cake mixes, but he prefers to lightly poach it first to ensure a soft, smooth texture.
The result is a moist, close textured cake with a full flavour of rhubarb.
Pork Belly also created a version with 2 oz diced stem ginger (increase the flour to 14 oz to replace the ground almonds) with ground ginger instead of cinnamon.
It too was delicious, but the ginger does have a tendency to overpower the more delicate rhubarb flavour, so it’s not to everyone’s taste.
Vegan rhubarb and almond cake
Ingredients
- 10 oz self-raising flour
- 4 oz ground almonds
- 6 oz sugar we used half muscovado, half caster
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 12 oz rhubarb cut into ¼ inch pieces
- 2 tablespoons vinegar white, cider or fruit infused work best
- 1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- 6 fluid oz oil
- Soya milk
- For poaching the rhubarb 3 tablespoons apple juice and 1 tablespoon sugar.
Instructions
- Prepare a 9" square baking tin
- Gently poach the rhubarb in the apple juice and sugar until it is just soft. Strain the juice into a jug and leave both rhubarb and juice to cool.
- Put all the dry ingredients except the bicarbonate of soda into a bowl.
- Take the liquid from the rhubarb and add enough soya milk to make it up to ½ pint.
- Add the vinegar and the bicarbonate of soda and watch it froth!
- Add this mixture and the oil to the dry ingredients and stir to a smooth consistency.
- Fold in the rhubarb, pour into the greased, lined tin and bake in a moderate oven, gas mark 5, 190° C, 375° F for about an hour.
- Turn out and cool, dust with icing sugar and serve.
Other recipes you may like:
• Gingerbread cake
• Dairy-free eggnog
• Langues de Chat biscuits
Just made this cake and it was a real success. Lovely and moist and easy to make! I will definetly be making it again
Hi Samantha, Thanks, that’s good to hear, it’s one of our favourites too, and it’s great with ice cream!
Thankyou , this was a very tasty bake … I was experimenting and baked half in a tin loaf but also I wanted to try out some cupcakes …. So they were both successful but quite moist …. I cooked the loaf first allotted time but the cupcakes less for fear of overcooking … felt I should have left them longer 🤔… also, I used half almond flour with said flour ! So would that have made my mixture consistency different ?? Which is why it was more moist ? Or should I have just baked the cupcakes first longer ?? Many Thanks
Hi Jo, thanks for letting us know about your baking and glad the loaf cake turned out well.
Yes, almond flour does behave a little differently and doesn’t absorb liquid as easily as wheat flour, which can be a problem. That would explain why the cupcakes turned out a little ‘wetter’ with the shorter bake time.
We prefer using the higher amount of wheat flour, but we’ve heard from some people who’ve successfully made it with just almond flour, although that requires the addition of a little raising agent (baking powder), otherwise it can be more of a pudding than a cake!
But as we know, all baking is a bit of an experiment. Even Pork Belly has his failures (although most of them are still edible!)
Let us know if you have another go.
Please can you assist , I am liking the sound of the vegan rhubarb and almond cake … can I use almond flour instead of ground almonds and also reduce the SR flour quantity ??
Hi Jo,
Good questions!
Almond flour and ground almonds are pretty much interchangeable, the flour is a little finer, that’s all.
But if you are planning on replacing some or all of the self-raising flour with almond flour, you will need a raising agent (baking powder) or it will turn out more like a pudding than a cake.
Cooking’s all about experimentation. Have a go and let us know how you get on.
Just baking it but wondering about the baking temperature……could be a bit more descriptive in terms of Celsius temperature. But otherwise its looking good
Whoops! Thanks for that, we’ve added that vital piece of info in now. Love to hear how it turned out.
I can’t see how much apple juice to use?
Hi Juliet, we used 3 tablespoons apple juice and 1 tablespoon sugar to poach the rhubarb. It is on the recipe, the last item in the ingredients list. Happy baking.
I made this with GF flour and Coconut sugar – also added a little lemon rind to the mix – absolutely delicious!
Great recipe and simple to make 🙂
Love the idea of the lemon rind – great addition, we’ll try it ourselves. Thank you.
What oil do you use please?
Hi Bernadette, I like to use a light vegetable oil, rapeseed oil or my fave is sunflower. Happy baking.
Hi, do you think hemp/almond or rice milk could replace soya milk? I am all ready to try hemp but decided to ask first 🙂 Many thanks, Yvie
Hi, it should work fine with any alternative to dairy milk. Love to know how you get on. Happy baking!
This recipe looks lovely, but you don’t say what size of baking tin to use?
Hi Lyndsay, Thanks for spotting that! I used a 9″ square tin. Happy baking.
Delicious – can’t believe how well this cake rose in the oven and the taste and texture are great!
So glad you like it. It’s one of Rosemary’s faves when rhubarb is in season.
We’ve been asked what type of vinegar it’s best to use. Whilst any vinegar will do the trick the lighter, white ones work best. We used a white wine vinegar but distilled white, apple cider or other fruity vinegars would work well. Pork Belly’s partial to a drop of raspberry vinegar. Save the brown malt for your fish and chips!