Two good rhubarb recipes

I have never been a fan of rhubarb. But it’s abundant at this time of year, and there’s little else to experiment with pudding-wise. So, for the past few weeks I’ve been trying to find a recipe I like.

I started by making rhubarb compotes. However, I only enjoyed eating them when I used equal quantities of sugar and rhubarb. I took the hint and moved on to jams. 

Rhubarb and ginger jam  

Rhubarb and ginger jam

Rhubarb is low in pectin, so you need to either use jam sugar (which has added pectin) or add another fruit that’s high in pectin (oranges, lemons or apples). Otherwise the jam won’t set.

Using jam sugar cuts the cooking time down to 10 minutes or less.

This BBC recipe was easy and produced a delicious vibrant jam; plum red and punchy.

Rhubarb and orange marmalade

This Lakeland recipe uses oranges to provide the pectin. You take near equal quantities of rhubarb, oranges and sugar, and cook them for 45 minutes.

This produced a very different jam, much more subtle than the first, with a delicate sweetness from the oranges and a faint tang of rhubarb.

Rhubarb and orange ice cream

Rhubarb pudding

The first jam was delicious swirled through yoghurt. 

The second made a lovely marmalade ice cream using the recipe from Sarah Raven’s Garden Cookbook (worth tracking down, you don’t even have to churn the mixture).