Rhubarb & Custard Traybake - Waitrose Spring Harvest 2015

As soon as I saw this recipe for Rhubarb & Custard Tray-bake in the Waitrose Spring Harvest 2015 magazine, I knew I had to make it. I love rhubarb!

This tray bake is a little unusual in that you add big "pools" of ready made custard into the uncooked, wet cake mix before baking it. The sponge mix bakes but the custard remains liquid and oozes out when you serve it up which is quite pleasing.

An easy enough recipe but I had a few minor issues:

• You are supposed to pre-roast the rhubarb to "lightly caramelise" it. Was it something I did wrong? Haha! My rhubarb was just a slush after I'd cooked it for the required time. It din't look anything like the nice "chunks" in the photos in the Waitrose magazine.
• My sponge was a tiny bit dry or "short" - I don't know even about the technicalities of baking but could this have been because of the addition of the custard powder, i.e. cornflour?
• Where the custard is exposed - not covered with cake mix or rhubarb, it does form a skin when baked. I didn't like this so would make sure all the custard was covered if I made it again. I realise some people love skin on custard so you could make a deliberate point of leaving it exposed when baking.
• Portion size - this is supposed to serve 12 people. Hmmm. That's rather an ambitious figure. I'd say this makes 6-8 good sized pudding portions.

I made a few modifications to the recipe - some intentional, some due to circumstance.

• I used a standard lasagne dish (33cm x 23cm) because I didn't have a baking tray that was deep enough or large enough. This worked out well even though it was bigger than the recipe suggests (i.e. 28cm x 22cm).
• I used the Waitrose Essential brand of ready made custard. This was because I wasn't sure if the recipe would work out that well and I didn't want to risk using such an expensive product on a potential disaster. As it turned out, it was fine and so was the custard. I'd stick with the cheaper version if I made this again.
• I forgot to add the crushed sugar cubes. Would have been a nice touch although I'm really not a fan of sugary things anyway.
• I used a different variety of rhubarb - I used Pink Rhubarb - because that's all they had!
• I used less sugar than the recipe asked for.
• I used large eggs because that's all I had.
• I didn't used the whole 500g tub of custard because I found it difficult to fit that much into the tray bake!

Conclusion

This is a great pudding! Everybody loved it and even my "Rhubarb Averse" teenage daughter managed to eat it. The big blobs of oozing custard were a novel touch. I think this could also work well with lots of other fruits.... I'm thinking blueberries or plums?

Making this also made me regret not digging up my rhubarb crown from my old house before moving. I definitely need a rhubarb plant in my new garden!

Here is the original Waitrose recipe and below is my slightly modified version.

Pink Rhubarb & Custard Traybake

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

400g pink rhubarb, cut into 2cm lengths

175g caster sugar

250g softened butter plus a little extra for greasing

3 large eggs

175g self raising flour

50g custard powder

100g ground almonds

400g of ready made custard

Method

1. First cook the rhubarb: Preheat the oven to 230°C, gas mark 8. Dry the rhubarb and place on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper. Sprinkle over 25g of the caster sugar. Bake for 20–25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool while making the cake mix.
2. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C, gas mark 4. Grease and line your lasagne tray with baking parchment or greaseproof paper.  Cream the butter and sugar and then beat in the flour, eggs, custard powder, Beat together the remaining sugar with the butter, eggs, flour, custard powder, ground almonds and 100g of the ready made custard. Carefully fold through the rhubarb.
3. Spread evenly into your dish. make big "wells" in the mixture with a dessert spoon and pour the remaining ready made custard into these holes. Cover the custard with rhubabr or cake mix if you don't like skin on custard! 
4. Bake for 45–50 minutes until risen and the sponge feels just firm to the touch. Leave to cool in the tin for about 20 minutes before serving. Also delicious cold.