I was at the veg stall last week and saw that they had some nice looking rhubarb,so I picked some up. I love it, but Kieran said he isn’t too keen on a rhubarb crumble as it’s too tart. As the longer you cook it, the sweeter it is,I thought I’d try and find a different recipe to convert him. So lo and behold, when I got home my Delicious subscription had arrived.

That looks noms. So I thought I’d give it a go:

• Butter for greasing
• 275g rhubarb (untrimmed weight)
• 50g caster sugar
• 2tsp plain flour

For the cake:

• 6tbsp soured cream
• 1 large egg,plus a yolk
• 1tsp vanilla bean paste (I used the seeds from two vanilla pods)
• 100g plain flour
• 100g caster sugar
• 1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 75g unsalted butter at room temp
• 50g ground almonds (I only had flaked almonds in, so I ground them in the pestle and mortar)

For the crumbs:

• 50g unsalted butter
• 25g light muscovado sugar
• 40g caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste (again, I used vanilla pod)
• 100g plain flour
• pinch of salt

1. For the crumbs, melt the butter in a small pan over a low heat. Remove from the heat, add both types of sugar and stir constantly until dissolved into a smooth, toffee like sauce.

2. Stir in the vanilla, into a bowl and stir in the flour and salt to make a stiff biscuit-like dough. Press the mixture firmly into the bottom of the bowl and set aside to go cold.

3. Preheat the oven to 180C/fan160C/gas4.Grease and line a 23cm round cake tin with baking paper. Wipe the rhubarb stalks clean, trim off the ends and cut the remainder into 2.5 cm pieces. Put them into a mixing bowl with the sugar and the flour. Set aside for 15 minutes or so until the flour and sugar mixture has become moist and clings to the fruit.

4. For the cake, stir the soured cream, egg, egg yolk and vanilla in a small bowl.

5. Sift the flour, sugar, bicarb, baking powder and salt into another bowl. Add the butter and mix using a hand-held electric mixer until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. (At this point,I got frustrated and ditched the hand-held mixer. Just use your hands – much quicker!) Stir in the nuts, then gradually beat in the soured cream mixture.

6. Spread the cake into the base of the prepared tin.

7. Scatter over the rhubarb mixture.

8. Break the crumb mixture into hazelnut sized pieces and scatter over the top.

9. Bake for 40-45 minutes until golden and a skewer can be inserted and come out clean. Leave to cook for 10 minutes. Serve!

I think I over cooked mine by about 2 minutes – the top bits of the rhubarb were a bit too caramelised – but that was just aesthetic, so overall I was really really pleased. The good news is that Kieran is now a rhubarb fan and gobbled up half this cake in no time and took a piece to work with him to have for his lunch.