I love rhubarb and am so grateful for the triffid like plant in the garden. Three loads harvested so far this year, and as you know I’ve tried simply roasting it as a treat with yoghurt in the morning and even steeping it in gin.

This time I wanted to see if I could conjure the flavours of a childhood favourite - the pure sugar Rhubarb and Custard sweet - and combine them in a cake.

As you may be gathering through these posts, I’m not a fan of a light sponge or cake, I like my cakes hearty and heavy, like the chocolate Guinness cake. I adapted this recipe from the BBC Good Food site. They use an all-in-one sponge technique, but I prefer the more traditional creaming of the sugar and butter.

The rhubarb has a lot of moisture, so the cake will take a lot more cooking than stated in the online recipe, and the added custard also means a light sponge is difficult to achieve. So instead, don’t worry - aim for moist, heavy and perfect!

Step 1 - Roast the rhubarb

Heat your oven to 200C / Gas 6
Give your rhubarb a good wash and dry
Cut into chunks about the size of a small finger
Put into a dish or pan in a single layer
Scatter over 50g of the caster sugar
Cover tightly with foil and pop in the oven for 20 minutes
Remove the foil and put back in the oven
Check after 10 minutes. You want soft roasted rhubarb, surrounded by sticky liquid, but still holding its shape (just!)

Step 2 - Make the cake

Cream together the room temperature butter and remaining caster sugar.
Use an electric whisk, fancy stand mixer, or if you’ve skipped arm day at the gym, a wooden spoon!
When the mix is light and creamy, crack in an egg and whisk again until all incorporated
Repeat with the remaining eggs, one at a time
Top tip: if the mixture looks curdled, just beat in a spoonful of your flour early
Beat in the vanilla, you’ve finished with the electric appliances now!
Stir in all but 3 tablespoons of the custard
Sieve in the flour and baking powder and give a good mix with a metal spoon.
Top tip: the metal spoon will help keep some air in the mix, the thick edge of a wooden spoon will knock out the air bubbles

Step 3 - Layer up!

Turn the oven down to 160C / Gas 4
Butter, line and butter a 23cm springform tin
You are going to have three layers of cake mix and three layers of rhubarb - cake, rhubarb, cake, rhubarb, cake, rhubarb, custard
Start with a third of the cake, spread out into the edges
Use a spoon and put a third of the rhubarb on top, carefully, trying keep the shape
Cover with cake, another layer of rhubarb, cake and a final layer of the best looking bits of rhubarb
Dot over the final three tablespoons of custard
You don’t have to be too neat on the top as the cake will liquify when it cooks

Step 4 - Bake

Pop your cake into the middle of the oven
Bake for 40 minutes
Check the top, the cake will still probably be very runny in the middle, but almost as brown as you want it
Cover with tinfoil to slow the browning and give it another 20 minutes
Check for wobble, there probably will be some still
After another 15 minutes do the skewer test until the skewer comes out clean. Test in a few places in case you hit a pocket of custard or rhubarb
When the skewer comes out clean and there is no wobble take the cake out of the oven
Cool in the tin then using the springform, take out and cool completely on a wire rack, if you can wait that long
Give the cake a generous dusting of icing sugar, as every home baker knows, it can cover a multitude of sins!

Serve a large slice with a mug of tea, or as a dessert with some whipped cream, clotted cream, custard or ice cream. We won’t tell if you have more than one extra on the side.

Ingredients - Rhubarb and custard cake

400g fresh rhubarb
300g golden caster sugar
250g unsalted butter
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g ready made custard (not the fresh / chilled kind, go for your favourite tub / carton)
250g self-raising flour
0.5 tsp baking powder
Icing sugar for dusting