Strawberry Rhubarb Dump Cake From Scratch

Lovely name, isn't it? Dump cake. It goes up there between mud pie and monkey bread on the unfortunately unappetizing food names list. Despite the name, the idea behind a dump cake is very appealing. You layer some kind of fruit in a baking pan, dump everything else on top of it, bake it and you're done. It ends up being some kind of cross between a cake and a fruit cobbler that is juicy and delicious. It certainly isn't pretty, but as far as cakes go it's about as easy as it gets. No mixing, no creaming, just dumping. It's the kind of dessert I can handle when I'm short on time or energy. Which is basically all the time.

The drawback of most of the dump cake recipes is that they use a cake mix. And sometimes jello, which my husband refuses to eat in any form. And sometimes other unusual ingredients that I don't normally have at home. While I don't turn my nose up at a boxed cake every once in a while, I do like to make things from scratch when I have the option so I worked on revamping a strawberry rhubarb dump cake recipe that I love. And like most things made from scratch versus the box version, the end product turned out even better. The difficulty factor did raise by about one notch. Instead of dumping a cake mix on the fruit, you have to process together 9 whole ingredients in a food processor. The strawberry flavor in the recipe comes from freeze dried strawberries instead of jello, and the touch of almond extract is amazing with the rhubarb. In fact, I bought 8 pounds of rhubarb to freeze about a month ago so I could try different rhubarb recipes and so far we are about halfway through the rhubarb and I've made exactly one recipe. This one. I can't seem to bring myself to try any other because the minute we finish a pan I'm craving a new one. It is just sweet enough and just tart enough, delicious on its own and amazing with some ice cream. If you've stashed away some rhubarb in your freezer or have a batch in your garden that needs a project, it doesn't get much easier or better than this.

Strawberry Rhubarb Dump Cake

By HeatOvenTo350 Published 06/17/2013

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup cornstarch (or substitute with another 1/4 cup flour)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 oz (about 1 1/2 cups) sliced freeze dried strawberries
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 4 cups chopped rhubarb (thawed and drained if frozen)
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter cut into 10-12 pieces

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, nonfat dry milk, salt and dried strawberries in a food processor. Process until combined and strawberries have been completely broken down.
2. Spread rhubarb in a 9x13 pan and top with brown sugar. Spread strawberry mixture on top. Pour water over the top and dot with butter pieces.
3. Bake 1 hour or until lightly browned. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving if eating warm.

Yield: 4 servings
Prep Time:10 min
Cook time:1 hour

Recipe Source: HeatOvenTo350

Posted in: Dessert