Les Poissonchats

I know I know rhubarb season is over in June but then I just do have to give you the recipe to this cake I made the other day. I’m still without any proper potager, so I went back to the garden of my old house to get the rhubarb, splendid. Anyhow there’s a silver lining on the horizon re potager though I can’t talk about it yet. My lips are sealed. Will soon can, promised. And then I’ll plant an offspring of the possibly centenary rhubarb that’s growing in the garden at my old house, it has the habit of competing with giants.

We’re having the summeriest of summers these days, you know the kind that has you pottering around the house in your airy nightgown all morning (and hoping no one will ring the doorbell and see, also I always, ALWAYS put on lipstick before I go down, wear lipstick and you’ll look agreeably put together), laundry is dry in the 30 minutes and nothing compares to walk in barefoot from the garden onto cold stone tiles. I’m making citronnade galore. Evenings are so wonderful when they place a cold hand on my naked shoulder.

The castle really is at it’s most darling and I’d like to give you an update on availability throughout this summer here:

Retreats: I do have spots available for the 1-day Mini retreat on 23 August and for the Baron‘s Pantry from 2-5 October. All other retreats have sold out. 

B&B at the castle: June and July are pretty much full except for 11/12/13 July. August and September still have good availability during weekdays but weekends are nearly full with only 8/9/10 August still available and 12/14/14 September and 19/20/21 September available. 

Please get in touch with me for bookings. 

Some of you asked for an update on 2026 retreats – I‘m still working on these as I‘m bringing in a couple of changes!

Now here to the rhubarb cake:

What you’ll need

• 100g butter 
• Four eggs
• 120g sugar
• 100g creme fraiche or sour cream
• Half a vanilla stem scraped out for the seeds
• Half a bag of baking powder
• 150g of flour
• A pinch of fleur de sel
• Six rhubarb stalks, or in case you’ve got the monster breed like me, two will do
• 100g cassonade, that’s the grainy brown sugar
• Icing sugar for dusting

How you bake it

Melt the butter at low temperature in a little pan. Separate the eggs and keep the egg whites in a separate bowl. Mix the yolks with the sugar until it gets really foamy light white. Add creme fraiche and vanilla seeds, mix and then add the flour with the baking powder. Mix and then slowly add the molten butter. Beat the egg white very stiff with a pinch of salt and gently fold in.

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

Cut the rhubarb into pieces about a centimetre thick. Butter a baking mould and dust it with a little flour. Add the batter and place the rhubarb pieces on top, sprinkle with the cassonade. Bake for 45 minutes.

Take out of the mould once you can touch it without getting burnt. Transfer to a pretty serving plate and dust with icing sugar.

How to eat it

The perfect afternoon treat with a cup of hot coffee. I admit I had it when the weather was a little less Southern but I suppose this kind of thing tastes nice even in the sweltering heat. Bon appetit!