Delightful Rhubarb Cobbler

Of all of the things in Mom’s little box of recipes the only one I wanted was the one for rhubarb cobbler. The oatmeal cookies might have been nice and to know how she made pancake syrup might come in handy someday but I don’t think she had that one written down anyway. But the rhubarb cobbler is in a class of it’s own and I had to have it.

I’m pretty sure I got it shortly after Barb S. and I were married but I don’t recall ever making it. Rhubarb is not something you see very often in the grocery store and even though I think there was some rhubarb somewhere on the property of our house in Moscow I never bothered to actually pick it.

Last summer Dad gave me a bunch of rhubarb and the recipe but, again, I never got around to actually making it into cobbler. The rhubarb spoiled and I lost the recipe.

When Mom died I got the recipe again and this time I put it in OneNote on my phone. Barb L. called around to various grocery stores and found just one that had three packages of frozen rhubarb in stock. I drove over and bought them all. They sat in my freezer for months until I finally made it into cobbler a week ago today.

I shared it with Barb L. and her family when I went over for dinner. I warned Barb’s daughter that not everyone likes it. I told her my son likes the topping but the body of the cobbler isn’t something he would go out of his way to have. She tasted it and proclaimed it, “Delightful!” Since she is not the least bit shy about telling me she doesn’t want to eat the food I cook this was not her just being polite. It really is delightful.

Yesterday I bought another Pyrex 9”x13” pan when I saw it at a Goodwill store. I wanted it specifically for making the cobbler. I then went to three different stores before I found one that had rhubarb. I bought four pounds so I could make two batches.

Delightful Rhubarb Cobbler

9”x13” pan

Body

2 pounds rhubarb
2C sugar
2T instant (preferred, but regular can also be used) tapioca
2t vanilla

Topping

1.5 brown sugar
1.5 C Quick oats
1C melted butter
1C flour

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Put the sugar, tapioca, and vanilla in the pan, mix, and spread evenly. Wash and then cut the rhubarb into sections about one inch long and spread evenly on the sugar mix in the pan.

Combine the topping ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix until uniform (about 30 seconds in my Kitchen Aid mixer). Spread evenly over the body of the cobbler.

IMG_7665

Bake for 40 minutes at 350F. The top should be slight browned and crispy.

IMG_7666

Let it cool before serving or serve hot in a bowl with a scoop of ice cream on top.

Share

2 thoughts on “Delightful Rhubarb Cobbler

  1. Sounds good, but I like rhubarb cookies. Moist, tart, individual serving size.
    1 cup brown sugar
    1 cup granulated sugar
    1 cup butter
    2 heaping cups thinly sliced rhubarb
    2 beaten eggs
    2 teaspoons vanilla extract
    1 cup finely chopped walnuts
    4 1/2 cups sifted flour*
    1 teaspoon soda
    1 teaspoon baking powder
    1 teaspoon salt

    Cream together sugars and butter.
    Mix in rhubarb, walnuts, and eggs
    Mix salt, soda, and baking powder into first cup of flour.
    Sift in flour a cup at a time, mixing well but not whipping (you want
    small rhubarb chunks to remain).
    Note: it will seem like a pretty dry cookie dough; that’s ok.
    Drop onto cookie sheet in tablespoon-sized glops
    Cook at 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.
    Cool on rack.

    *I usually use half whole-wheat and half white flour, and you can
    easily substitute in a half cup of wheat germ or oat bran for a half cup of
    flour.

  2. Cool. I saved both recipes. Our Mom has made a similar cobbler all along, as did her mother, who sold quite a lot of rhubarb from her farm, but I never heard of the cookies. I raise rhubarb at home, and these’ll be a nice addition. Thanks.

    It seems most of our rhubarb is consumed in the form of sauce. Cut it small pieces and cook it down, with just a little bit of water at the bottom of the pan to help transfer heat, and add sugar to taste. Cook ’till it falls apart into a slightly clumpy mush. I like the sauce more tart than sweet, served cold, eaten either by itself or as a topping for ice cream. Variations could include adding other fruits, or adding a pinch of salt to a couple quarts of sauce. Make it while the supply is plentiful and freeze it for future use. It can also be canned as with other fruits.

    When my wife once made a pineapple upside-down cake during rhubarb season, I told her to try a rhubarb upside-down cake. Just substitute one fruit for the other, maybe adding some sugar to compensate for the difference in sweetness between pineapple and rhubarb. It’s very good. Try it.

    When we were kids we’d pull a fresh stalk of rhubarb, bite off an end to expose the juice and then dip it in sugar, bite off the sugary end, repeat.

Comments are closed.