If you know me in real life, it’s no secret that I love to cook and bake. I have a dream of one day owning a food truck, so if I find a recipe I love, I spend a lot of time tweaking and perfecting it to my taste. This week, I made these incredible, easy, oh-so-yummy, Rhubarb Custard Bars that I found on The Taste of Home website. This is such a delicious summer dessert! The recipe is pretty perfect as is, but I decided to change it up a little, adding strawberries and using less sugar. Here’s the recipe, step-by-step directions and maybe a some goats pics for good measure. After all, I AM a farmgirl!
The Shortbread Crust
The crust is a divine shortbread type of crust, and super simple to make!
2 Cups Flour. 1/4 Cup Sugar. 1 Cup Cold Butter.
I use organic flour, raw sugar and organic butter. That’s just how we roll here, use what you love!
Stir together flour and sugar and then use a pastry cutter to cut in the butter. You can use two forks to cut in the butter, but I find a pastry cutter makes it so much easier. Your mixture will resemble coarse crumbs. Pat the mixture into a 9×13″ pan and bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.
Strawberry-Rhubarb Filling
While you crust is baking, whip up the filling!
I use 1-1/4 Cups raw sugar instead of 2 cups, since the strawberries add sweetness and I want the tart of the rhubarb to stand out. 7 Tablespoons flour, 1 Cup Heavy whipping cream, 3 room temperature, large eggs…farm fresh, of course!! Chop 4 cups chopped Rhubarb and 1 Cup strawberries. Fruit can be fresh or thawed from frozen. Be sure to drain it if its been thawed. The original recipe says to FINELY chop the fruit, but I do not do this. I prefer to chop it small, not fine.
Don’t forget your crust is in the oven! Maybe you are awesome and on top of these things, but I am one to forget important things like that! Stir together flour and sugar and whisk in eggs and cream. If your crust is ready, pour the mixture over the crust, and you are all set!
Bake at 350 degrees until custard is set, about 40 minutes. The first time I made this recipe, I made the mistake of trying to wait until my knife (or toothpick, for ya’ll fancy folk) came out clean. Apparently custard doesn’t do that, so I bake until it no longer jiggles.
If you use stoneware for baking like me, you may be waiting a hot minute for this thing to cool off. This is the perfect time to make the topping! It’s quick and easy and SO GOOD. I honestly have hard time saving it for the cake!
Yummy Whipped Cream Topping
The recipe calls for 6 oz. of creams cheese, but I use 8. What am I going to do with 2 ounces of cream cheese…and a little extra surely can’t hurt? You’ll also need: 1/3 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1 cup heavy whipping cream. The original recipe uses 1/2 cup of sugar, but we really don’t like things super sweet.
Whip your cream. Homemade whipped cream is the absolute best…I don’t even buy it from the store any more! I put my mixer on the highest speed, add the cream, and beat til thick. You can a tablespoon or two of sugar to sweeten it up, and I add a little vanilla for other recipes, but it’s not needed for this since its already in the topping.
Put Your whipped cream in another bowl and use the mixer to cream together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla. Then fold in the whipped cream.
As I mentioned before, it takes a while for food to cool in stoneware, so I decided to go treat the goats with the strawberry tops left behind from the filling. Usually we throw kitchen scraps out for the chickens, but I knew my goats would LOVE these.
Finishing Up
By now the cake is ready to top. Spread topping evenly over the cake.
After the topping is on, cover and chill. Unless you are like me and can’t wait to shove this warm gooey treat in your mouth….then by all means…
This recipe claims to make make 3 dozen bars. For this to be possible, you are looking at 3×1″ bars. This is probably doable, but it simply doesn’t happen in this house.
I hope you enjoy these oh-so-yummy rhubarb bars as much as my family does! If you try it, let me what you think! If you change it up, I’d love to hear how you make this recipe your own!
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The (Not So) Glamorous Life of a Farm Girl
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Put It Down
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Your blog was so fun that I wanted to try the recipe and buy a goat to feed the strawberry tops.