Mark's Internet Test Kitchen, Part III (Rhubarb and Custard Trifles)

[mark_asphodel]

Let's be clear about this: I feel I already have the ultimate Rhubarb and Custard recipe, which I have shared repeatedly.  But this recipe from Stasty.com has two things that enticed me.

1) It serves two people.  Not a bad thing to see when you live in a two-person household. 
2) The trifle was topped with crumbled ginger biscuits.

I found this recipe while on a hunt for something even more weird-- either the Rubik's Cube Battenburg Cake or some other freakish thing going around tumblr.  But I'm a sucker for the rhubarb-custard combination, so I went with this.

It's easy. Really easy.  The portions are tiny-- I used two stalks of rhubarb.  The 200mL of heavy cream doesn't amount to much.  It only needs two eggs.  I assembled it in stages prior to making the main event for dinner tonight (fiddlehead ferns with garlic and red pepper flakes).  The rhubarb took a couple of minutes to wash and chop and ten minutes to cook.  The cream reached near to boiling in no time at all and it only took a few minutes of stirring to finish off the custard.  The whipped cream topping would've taken seconds except 50mL of cream is such a tiny amount I whipped it by hand.  And then I assembled the "trifle" (which contains no ladyfingers or biscuit-type things, so it's really more of a fool than a trifle) in two glasses and popped it in fridge.  Done.

[Seriously, though, the very simplicity of this hinges on knowing how to both poach rhubarb and make a cooked custard.  To hell with that "coats the back of a spoon" business-- at a certain point, you're flying by intuition, especially when the portions are this tiny.]

So, how was it?  Well, it contained rhubarb and custard, so I'm biased, but it was really quite good and well-composed.  It didn't reach the mind-blowing lusciousness of my usual custard recipe (which is super-rich, super-sweet, and needs something like rhubarb or blackcurrants to balance it out) but I'm pretty sure this was more health-conscious and economical and hey, it came with built-in portion control. 

So, yeah.  Four stars out of five, would make again, etc.  Suitable for entertaining.  And so on.  The Most Excellent Spouse agreed my normal custard recipe is tastier but noted that hey, this is a rhubarb and custard dessert.  We're sold on it from that angle alone.

PS: I expect poisoned rhubarb pies as a plot device in someone's FE13 'fic.  Get at it.

Comments

[wolt]

I think my favorite rhubarb-anything is cake. Second only to zucchini cake. But, after a fiasco in the kitchen this afternoon, I've decided that my baker's intuition no longer exists, and that I should probably just not ever attempt cooking anything more complicated than prepackaged macaroni and cheese. Let it be known as the end of an era.

But hmm, now I'm really curious about your custard recipe. The only custard I've had wasn't all that sweet or rich, but it was served with delicious Christmastime plum pudding, so I'd like to give it another go with a better batch. Have you posted the recipe before? And if not, would you be willing to share?

[mark_asphodel]

Yep, here's the recipe: http://mark-asphodel.livejournal.com/98323.html

It demands something tart to balance it.

[wolt]

Awesome. Thanks!

[amielleon]

(Haha the "coats the back of a spoon business" -- in my experience (and preparing custard is one of the few culinary things I do have experience with, thanks to my ice cream habit) that's a poor litmus anyway since by the time it coats the back of a spoon it'll be too late to take it off the heat and the temperature of the pot will drive the bottom into curdling slightly. I've taken to immersing the bottom of the pot in cool water just when it's perfect, but unless you have an ice bath ready I'm pretty sure spoon-coating thickness is stopping too late.)

[queenlua]

i'm pretty sure the only rhubarb-anything i've ever tried is some rhubarb wine i bought last winter oops

i totally just had to google to even find out what rhubarbs look like

(the wine was really good though? :D;;;; )

[mark_asphodel]

Rhubarb wine sounds pretty good.

[queenlua]

it's the "rhuby razz" from french lick winery in particular—no idea if it shows up in your neck of the woods; it's pretty popular in KY but, alas, is nonexistent here in MA—but I really like most the wines I've tried from them!

[mark_asphodel]

Michigan makes it hard for out-of-state wineries to sell here; I'll keep an eye out, though.