Loves Me Some Rhubarb!

One of my favorite things about this time of year is the delicious rhubarb and all of the amazing ways to use it.  I have always loved rhubarb and growing up I remember my mom always making wonderful rhubarb desserts around this time of year.  I was very excited when I found out that we had rhubarb plants on our land when we moved into our house and although they are small, I do my best to use as much of it as I can each year.  I am a big fan of the traditional ways to use it, crisps, pies and anyway it can be mixed with a strawberry.  And although I like the traditional rhubarb desserts, I just had to find a new use for my beloved perennial.  I found a recipe for cupcakes using rhubarb and since I have been all about filled cakes lately I decided to jazz it up a bit and stuff them with a rhubarb mousse.

I started with the mousse since it needed time to chill.
Rhubarb Mousse adapted from seriouslygood
1 lb rhubarb chopped
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup sugar
1 packet unflavored gelatin
Juice of one lime
2 egg yolks
2 cups heavy cream

Cook rhubarb, water and 1/4 cup sugar in a sauce pan over medium heat, stirring often until the rhubarb starts to break down.

Transfer the rhubarb to a food processor and add gelatin and lime juice and pulse until smooth.  Move this to the fridge to cool completely.

In a double boiler, beat the egg yolks and remaining sugar (it will be super thick at first until it starts to heat up).  Cook over simmering water until they are a pale yellow

This should be cooled to room temp before moving to the next step.  Once the eggs and the rhubarb have cooled, mix them together.  In a mixing bowl with a whisk attachment, whip the cream until stiff and then fold in the rhubarb mixture.  I put this whole thing back in the fridge so it could get nice and thick before I used it to fill my cupcakes.

Rhubarb Cupcakes adapted from fooddoodles.com
1 cup rhubarb puree
1 1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup softened butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs

Preheat over to 350.

I started by putting chopped rhubarb in a food processor and pulsing until it's broken down.  Then add this puree to a sauce pan and cook until it's reduced by half. (You will need the same amount of puree for the frosting later so I just doubled it right away and then measured out what I needed for the cupcakes)

It doesn't look that appealing but it will taste good I promise.  I put this in the fridge while I made the rest of the batter so it could cool down a little.  In a big bowl beat the butter and sugar until fluffy and then add the eggs, vanilla, cream (the original recipe called for milk but I had cream on hand, if you want your cupcakes to be a little lighter you can use milk) and fruit puree.  I another bowl sift together the dry ingredients and then add those to the wet ingredients until just combined.  Scoop out into 12 lined cupcake cups (I doubled this recipe to make 24 so I could be a good co worker and bring some in to work today).

Bake for about 20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Then move the cupcakes to a cooling rack and start on the frosting while they cool.

Rhubarb Frosting
1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup of the reduced rhubarb puree
3/12 cups powdered sugar (you may need a little more to get the right consistency)
1/2 tsp vanilla

Blend the butter, the fruit puree and vanilla to combine.  Slowly add the sugar (about a half cup at a time) until the icing is the right consistency (a little thinner if you are spreading it on and a bit thicker if you will be piping it on so it will hold it's shape.

When the cupcakes were cooled I took out my handy little cupcake corer and cut out the core of each cupcake to make room for my rhubarb mousse filling.

I put the mousse in a piping bag, our you could use a big Ziploc with the corner cut off and filled the centers of all the cupcakes. (Next time I would definitely cut the mousse recipe in half because I had a lot left over even though I had doubled my cupcake recipe.)

Once the cupcakes were filled I put my frosting in a piping bag with a large star tip and piped a swirl onto the top of each cupcake.

You'll want to store these in the fridge because of the mousse centers.  They looked so yummy I had to try one right away.  I can tell you if you like rhubarb they will not disappoint.  The cupcakes are rich and dense with a hint of rhubarb flavor and they mix well with the soft cream mousse center and the delicious rhubarb buttercream ties the whole thing together.