Icelandic Happy Marriage Cake - Hjónabandssæla

Icelandic Happy Marriage Cake is traditionally made with a rhubarb jam filling – purists take note – everyone else can use their favorite jam in the middle. 

It seems like there are as many recipes for Happy Marriage Cake as there are happy marriages but the three ingredients they all seem to include are sugar, butter and oats. They also pretty much agree on how the bottom is pressed or smoothed into the pan. After that, it’s a big free-for-all. 

Some recipes want you to crumble the balance of the “cake” on top of the rhubarb. Others suggest you try to spread it (impossible!) or even roll it into thin sausages to be put on top lattice-like before baking. I wish I could tell you my source for this pat-the-dough method but I saved this recipe ages ago and didn’t save the link. 

The origins of this recipe are likewise fraught. Some say it is from the 1950s. Others claim their grandmothers and their mothers before them made this. One blogger said the only proper time to eat/serve Happy Marriage Cake is at a wedding reception while another claimed that it got its name because it is an inexpensive treat a newlywed wife can make her husband the day after.

Here’s what I can tell you. It’s buttery. It's oaty. Love the rhubarb in the middle. It’s good! 

Icelandic Happy Marriage Cake - Hjónabandssæla

You can use store-bought jam in place of the rhubarb but choose something with a bit of sharpness. If your jam is quite thick, consider loosening it with the addition of some lemon or lime juice. This is not meant to be super sweet but a just right blend of sweet and tart. I used frozen rhubarb since fresh is ridiculously expensive where I am right now. Check your supermarket's frozen section. You might be as pleasantly surprised as I was by how affordable rhubarb can be. 

Ingredients

For the rhubarb jam:

3 cups or 325g chopped fresh or frozen rhubarb

1/4 cup or 50g granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the cake:

1 3/4 cups or 158g rolled oats

1 3/4 cups or 220g all-purpose flour

1/2 cup or 100g granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons or 200g butter, softened

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup or 240ml rhubarb jam

For serving: cream or vanilla ice cream, for serving (optional)

Method

First we’ll make the rhubarb jam, which is very much like a very thick rhubarb sauce. Combine the rhubarb, sugar, and vanilla in a medium pot. 

Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until rhubarb has completely broken down and thickened, about 25 minutes. If you can pull a spoon through it and it doesn't run back together, you are good to go. 

Remove the jam from the heat and cool completely.

Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C. 

To make the cake dough: Combine the oats, flour, sugar, and baking soda in a large bowl.  

Mix in the softened butter until evenly incorporated.

Add the beaten eggs and mix until a stiff dough forms.

Lightly grease a 9 x 9 in or 23 x 23cm baking pan. Line it with baking parchment. You can skip the greasing step if you'd like but I find just a little butter helps keep the baking parchment in place. 

Evenly press about 2/3 of the dough into the prepared dish. My dough weighed 776g (27 oz by weight) so I used 517g (18 oz by weight) for the bottom. 

Spread with the rhubarb jam. 

Using the remaining 1/3 of dough, dampen your hands with water and take a small piece of dough and flatten it between your hands. Place the piece of flattened dough on top of rhubarb.  

Continue in this manner, using smaller pieces of flattened dough to fill in the gaps between the larger pieces, until the rhubarb is almost completely covered.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until the top of the cake is lightly browned.

Cool on wire rack. 

Cut into squares to serve.

Serve with cream or vanilla ice cream, if desired.

Enjoy!

Today my fellow Baking Bloggers are all sharing recipes made with oats. Check them out below! Many thanks to our host and organizer, Sue of Palatable Pastime. 

• Baked Oatmeal with Rhubarb by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Buttermilk Oat Flour Pancakes by The Redhead Baker
• Cherry Rhubarb Crisp by Palatable Pastime
• Chewy Oatmeal Cookies by Making Miracles
• Chocolate Cherry Oatmeal Cookies by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Fresh Cherry and Nectarine Crisp With Oat Streusel by Magical Ingredients
• Icelandic Happy Marriage Cake - Hjónabandssæla by Food Lust People Love
• White Chocolate Chunk Oats Cookies by Sneha’s Recipe

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interested in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

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- Hjónabandssæla!

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Roasted Rhubarb Upside Down Cake #BundtBakers

Orange almond cake batter is spooned onto sweet roasted rhubarb and baked to golden perfection for a beautiful dessert your whole family will adore. Drizzled with the sticky rhubarb syrup and topped with chopped pistachios for a hit of color and crunch, this roasted rhubarb upside down cake is our new favorite sweet treat.

Years ago, when I was growing up in Houston, Texas, our neighborhood by-laws didn’t permit garage sales, so a couple of times a year the civic association organized a white elephant sale in a nearby stadium parking lot. For a $10 fee, you could park your car and display your wares right behind it. For my mom and me, those sales were a highlight. We’d set up and sell stuff, but we also loved to browse for treasures, so we’d take turns manning our own “stall” and shopping.

Fast forward many years and I discovered that my favorite childhood event is a common thing in the United Kingdom. It’s called a car boot sale since car boot = car trunk. No prior registration is necessary – anyone can just rock up with a full car and pay a fee, typically £8 ($10) and sell their junk, I mean, treasures. Best of all, during the summer time, car boot sales happen Every Single Weekend!

Last weekend at the car boot sale here in Jersey, we bought two huge chancre crabs, four gorgeous hydrangeas in pots, a couple of books and a healthy bunch of homegrown rhubarb. For Father’s Day on Sunday, I wanted to make something special for my husband who adores rhubarb. This cake did not disappoint!

Roasted Rhubarb Upside Down Cake

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, the recipe for the roasted rhubarb, I decided to publish that separately since it actually makes twice the rhubarb you need for this cake. You can follow those instructions and use half the amounts if you don’t want the extra sweet roasted rhubarb, but I promise it will be eaten, and promptly, if you do!

Ingredients
For the cake batter:
1/2 cup or 113g butter, softened, plus extra for the pan
1/2 cup or 100g caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup or 125g plain flour, plus extra for the pan
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup or 75g polenta or fine cornmeal, plus a little extra for the pan
1/4 cup or 30g ground almonds
2 tablespoons or 30ml fresh orange or clementine juice
2 teaspoons orange or clementine zest

To assemble: 1/2 of the roasted rhubarb from this recipe: Sweet Roasted Rhubarb
To decorate: 1 tablespoon roughly chopped pistachios

Method
Follow the link in the ingredients list for instructions to roast your rhubarb and set aside to cool while you prepare the cake batter.

Generously grease and flour a 6-cup Bundt pan. Sprinkle an additional teaspoon of fine cornmeal on the bottom. This makes a bit of a thin crust so the rhubarb doesn’t stick to the pan.

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C. (Or turn it down if it's still hot from roasting the rhubarb.)

Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well.

Sift in the flour, baking powder, soda and salt. Whisk to combine.

Fold in the fine cornmeal, ground almonds, orange juice and zest until well combined.

Line the bottom of your Bundt pan with roasted rhubarb, saving any excess to serve alongside it. I chose all of the prettiest pinker bits, another reason to roast more that you actually need!

Spoon the batter into the Bundt pan and smooth the top with a spatula.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until it is golden and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean. Remove from the oven but leave in the pan to cool for about 10 minutes. Any longer and it might end up sticking so do set a timer.

Turn the cake out onto a wire rack to cool completely. At this point, I used a dull knife to flick away some of the cornmeal "crust" on top to better reveal the beautiful rhubarb.

Drizzle or brush on some sticky syrup from the roasted rhubarb. Sprinkle with chopped pistachios with a little more syrup on top to help them stick.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to this month’s Bundt Bakers host, Sue from Palatable Pastime. We are sharing cakes that are perfect for picnics! Along with my little 6-cup Bundt which travels well, check out all the other great cakes we've baked for you.

• Cheerwine Bundt Cake from Palatable Pastime
• Elderflower and Blueberry Bundt - Bundt Cake Flor de Saúco y Arándanos from Merce's Cake
• Lemon and Pistachio Bundt Cake from Patyco Candybar
• Milk Chocolate and Caramel Popcorn Bundt Cake from All That's Left Are The Crumbs
• Pineapple Upside Down Bundt from Simply Inspired meals
• Roasted Rhubarb Upside Down Cake from Food Lust People Love
• Spiced Apple Streusel Cake from Sneha's Recipe

#BundtBakers is a group of Bundt loving bakers who get together once a month to bake Bundts with a common ingredient or theme. You can see all our of lovely Bundts by following our Pinterest board. We take turns hosting each month and choosing the theme/ingredient. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about BundtBakers, can be found on our home page.

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Sweet Roasted Rhubarb

Sweet roasted rhubarb with a hint of orange and vanilla makes the perfect accompaniment to ice cream, cake or yogurt. We also love it topped with double cream or baked in an upside down cake.

Tomorrow I’ll be sharing a small orange almond Bundt cake recipe that uses half of this recipe of sweet roasted rhubarb but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that the rhubarb deserved its own post.

It is super simple to make, keeps well for several days in the refrigerator and it can be eaten so many ways. Even though I was roasting the rhubarb specifically to make the cake, I roasted twice the amount needed because my husband is a huge rhubarb fan and I knew he’d love leftovers. Also, I must confess, I had another more selfish motive as well. I wanted to be able to choose the prettiest dark pink bits for the cake.

Sweet Roasted Rhubarb

I make vanilla sugar by adding 2-3 vanilla pods to about 2 cups or 400g white sugar in airtight container and setting it aside for a couple of weeks in a cool cupboard. The sugar takes on the vanilla flavor and is wonderful in all sorts of recipes, or even just in a cup of warm milk before bed. If you don’t have vanilla sugar, substitute normal sugar and add one teaspoon of vanilla extract to the orange juice instead.

Ingredients
14 oz or 400g rhubarb, cut into 2 in or 5cm lengths
1/4 cup or 50g vanilla sugar vanilla extract
2 tablespoons or 30ml fresh orange or clementine juice
Good pinch flakey sea salt

Method
Preheat the oven temperature to 400°F or 200°C. Trim the dried ends and brown bits off of the rhubarb. Cut it into 2 in or 5cm pieces.

Pile the rhubarb on a baking tray. Pour on the juice, add the vanilla sugar and toss to coat.

Spread the pieces of rhubarb out so they aren’t touching.

Roast for 15-20 minutes or until the rhubarb is fork tender. Set aside to cool.

Store the rhubarb and the syrupy juice in a covered container in the refrigerator. Serve cold or warmed with something creamy like yogurt, ice cream or cream. Enjoy!

If you are a fan of rhubarb, you might also enjoy these recipes:

• Rhubarb Sauce Cookies
• Apple Rhubarb Pie 
• Rhubarb Fool Cocktail

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Fresh Rhubarb Steamed Sponge Pudding with Rhubarb Sauce

This fresh rhubarb steamed sponge pudding is a light springtime recipe, highlighting the gorgeous pink tart rhubarb that is available now. This sticky dessert takes a while to cook but it's mostly hands off time. Wait till you bite into its soft sponge with tart topping! Totally worth it.

As an expat parent raising two daughters in foreign lands, I felt a great responsibility to make sure that they learned about the culture and traditions of the countries where we were lived. After all, one of the most valuable lessons we can take away from living overseas is that our way of doing things is not the only way; it may not even be the best way. We learn and we grow as we expand our borders.

I also considered it of grave importance to teach them about their own American heritage and cultural roots from the sweet joys of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to the reasons we value the democratic system and should always exercise our right to vote. This challenge was further expanded by our mixed origins. My husband is British, which meant that, as the person who cooks most of the meals in our family, when it came to passing on food traditions, it fell to me to cover both.

A typically British dessert, steamed sponge puddings were not part of my childhood menu. For that matter, neither was rhubarb! I remember seeing it first in a fruit and veg market in Sydney when I was 24 and wondering to myself, what sort of strange celery was this? My husband, on the other hand, grew up with both.

The first steamed pudding I ever made, and still make to this day, is one we call Granda’s Dumpling. It was shared with me by a dear friend and it is her father’s specialty. It's perfect for Christmas, a pudding full of mixed fruit that reminds me of a very moist fruitcake. For spring, a lighter sponge pudding with rhubarb is more appropriate.

Meanwhile, I've also made up for lost time on the rhubarb front. If you have ready access to rhubarb, you might want to check out some of my other rhubarb-y recipes:

• Rhubarb Nectarine Puff Pastry Tarts
• Apple Rhubarb Strawberry Pie 
• Rhubarb Fool Cocktails 
• Fresh Rhubarb Muffins
• Rhubarb Apple Ginger Crumble 

Fresh Rhubarb Sponge Pudding with Rhubarb Sauce

The glossy pink rhubarb on top of this steamed pudding is a welcome bit of color on a dreary cold day.  My recipe is adapted from .delicious magazine, (UK) March 2009 issue. In all, you will need 14 1/2 oz or 480g of rhubarb but I have given the amount divided below to make the recipe easier to follow. No rhubarb? Substitute whatever seasonal fruit you have on hand and adjust the sugar accordingly. This pudding with serve four greedy people and six with more restrained appetites.

Ingredients
For the pudding:
2 1/2 oz or 70g rhubarb, trimmed
3 tablespoons golden syrup (See Note)
1/2 cup or 100g sugar
7 tablespoons or 100g butter, softened, plus extra for greasing the pudding basin
3/4 cup or 95g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup or 57ml milk
2 large eggs
Grated zest 1 lemon
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

For the rhubarb sauce:
12 oz or 340g rhubarb, trimmed
1/8 cup or 28g sugar – or more to taste
Grated zest and juice 1 orange
Good pinch salt

To serve: pouring or whipped cream

Note: Golden syrup can be purchased in the international aisle of most large grocery stores. Substitute a cane syrup or amber corn syrup if you cannot find any.

Method
Rinse and dry the rhubarb.

Cut your choicest pieces of rhubarb into lengths that will fit nicely in the bottom of a 4+ cup or 1 liter pudding basin. Cut the rest of rhubarb into bite-size pieces, put it in a medium-sized non-reactive pan and set it aside.

Butter the pudding basin and then add the rhubarb to the bottom, curved side down. Drizzle the golden syrup over it.

Note: If you don't have a pudding basin, you can substitute a stainless steel mixing bowl. It should have a small lip.

Using your electric mixer, beat the sugar and butter together until they turn light yellow and fluffy. Add in the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition.

Beat in the lemon zest and vanilla.

Sift in your flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. then add the milk. Fold them both in gently.

Spoon the batter into your buttered pudding basin.

Cover the basin with folded parchment paper and secure it with kitchen string. Tie the ends of the string together to create a handle with which to lift the basin and trim any excess parchment.

Put the covered basin in a large pot. Add hot water to the pot till it comes two-thirds of the way up the side of the basin.

Bring the water to a gentle boil then cover the pot and lower the flame to simmer. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Check the water level occasionally and add more as needed.

Meanwhile, make the rhubarb sauce. Add the caster sugar, the orange zest, orange juice and a pinch of salt to the pan where you've saved the cut rhubarb.

Gently cook for 5-10 minutes over a medium until the rhubarb softens and turns saucy, stirring from time to time. Taste the sauce and add a little more sugar, if necessary. Set the rhubarb sauce aside to cool.

Once the pudding steaming time is up, carefully remove the basin from the pot, using your string handle. Set it on a wire rack.

Remove the baking parchment and leave to cool for five minutes, then run a knife around the edges of the sponge pudding. Isn't it amazing how a steamed pudding browns?

Turn it out on a serving dish.

Serve with rhubarb sauce and, if you'd like, pouring cream.

Enjoy!

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