Strawberry Rhubarb Coffee Cake: Tastes like summer!

Its strawberry season again and one of my new favorite Memorial day weekend traditions is hitting up the berry patch to pick our hearts out. This year we spent a blustery morning with the entire clan while we were visiting B’s grandparents in Rehoboth. We ended up with a nice haul and I immediately began thinking of how to best put them to use. The result was a delicious Memorial Day Salad, a batch of strawberry Rhubarb syrup and a couple the positively scrumptious strawberry rhubarb cakes.

I am a huge fan of the strawberry rhubarb combination and with my addiction to baked goods haunting over this pregnancy  I decided to give a coffee cake a try. I found this recipe for Rhubarb upside down cake and decided to change it up a bit to fit my needs and boy am I glad I did. It was absolutely delicious! 

Topping:

4 tbs butter

½ C flour

¼ C sugar

Salt

Cake:

1.5 sticks of butter, melted

1 ¾ C sugar

1 ½ C flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

Salt

2 eggs

1 C plain yogurt

1/2 lb rhubarb, cut into ½ inch thick slices

1 lb of strawberries sliced

½ lemon, juiced

Toss rhubarb and ¾ c of sugar in a deep pan an heat on low for 10-15 minutes or until the rhubarb begins to cook. Add strawberries and cook for an additional 10-15 minutes allowing the mixture to break down and thicken. Set the fruit aside to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350 and begin to make the topping by stirring together the ingredients until it resembles small crumbles.  Butter your pan of choice, I used a bunt baking pan but the original recipe used 9 inch rounds. Dot the entire pan with small chunks of butter (about 4 tbs worth) and then pour your strawberry rhubarb sauce over the butter. The sauce layer should be about 1 inch thick across the bottom of the pan. The remainder can be set aside to drizzle over the cake or other treats later.

Whisk together flour, baking powder and 1 ½ tsp of salt. In a separate bowl add the remaining stick of softened butter and cup of sugar mixing until pale and fluffy. Add in lemon zest and juice and eggs continuing to mix throughout the process. Begin to incorporate flour and yogurt in small batches until smooth. Spread evenly over the fruit mixture and carefully run a knife back and forth through the cake and fruit in a zig zag motion to add a swirl effect. Add crumble topping over the batter and bake for about an hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cake to cook for about 10 minutes. Tap the edges of the pan or run a knife around to loosen the cake before inverting it on a tray.