Rhubarb Sauce Meringue Pie

Tis the season for rhubarb! My husband noticed a recipe for Rhubarb Meringue Pie in a newspaper recently and suggested I try it. I was a little taken aback - I mean, I LOVE Lemon Meringue Pie, but I didn't know how I'd like Rhubarb Meringue. I didn't have the actual paper so I did a quick internet search and found several recipes. I followed the one at Cooks.com for their Rhubarb Sauce Meringue Pie.

My only critique with the recipe is that the cornstarch should have been combined with a little water and mixed into the rhubarb rather than adding it in, dry, with the sugar. I took out a couple clumps of cornstarch before pouring the final filling into the pie shell. The rest of the recipe was great. It says to bake until it is a "delicate brown". It certainly looked delicate coming out of the oven! It was a truly beautiful pie. If you like Lemon Meringue Pie and have some rhubarb, I would insist you try this pie! I used frozen rhubarb and was delighted with the results. The whole family was asking for seconds. It was delicious. I loved how the tang of the rhubarb was nicely offset by the meringue - excellent combination.

There are egg yolks in the filling, which explains why the filling is more orange than you would expect from red rhubarb. I enjoyed this pie a lot more than my previous rhubarb apple pie with molasses. I was really impressed at how nicely the filling held up with the cooled pie. I love my husband's good ideas!

Enjoy your rhubarb!

Applesauce Rhubarb Muffins

I needed to use up those last cups of rhubarb in my freezer so I searched online for a rhubarb muffin recipe without nuts - so my children could bring them to school. I found a recipe at www.cooks.com

for these muffins and they are great!

I will finely chop the rhubarb the next time I make them. With 1/2 inch pieces, the chunks of rhubarb are too big to let the muffins cook evenly. Oh, and I used about 1/3 cup of oil instead of 1/2 cup and they didn't miss the fat!

Enjoy that fresh rhubarb from your garden today!

Happy Birthday cake!

How would you decorate a cake for a six year old who can't decide what he likes? Here's what I did:

I made a "6" cake! I used two round pans for the bottom and a heart pan, cut in two and trimmed to make this 2-layer cake. I filled it with lemon curd (think lemon pie filling) and iced it with buttercream.
Here's what the first filled layer looked like:

I should have used a different color than purple as an accent - it might be too "girly" for him. Or I could have made the cake darker blue but it will still taste the same!

Thinking about Mother's Day

Hello friends! This morning I thought I would play with my little girl all morning, but my bread supply was so low that I had to make bread instead. It was a good, dreary day for it. While I was at that, I glimpsed the little piece of paper I had recently signed - agreeing to donate a cake to a cake walk that is happening on Saturday (the day before Mother's Day). I figured, "Why not?" and baked a cake too. I made a plain white cake, 2 layers, 9 inches round. I made up some buttercream and got to work decorating the cooled cake. In an hour, I had this to give away. I thought it should make a nice Happy Mother's Day cake!

So, Happy Mother's Day a little early!

(Now go tell your mom you love her.)