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Rhubarb Well
This is made of a rich bread dough pressed in a shallow pan, the sides much higher than the middle, which is filled thickly with sliced rhubarb and scraped maple sugar; bake until the dough is done and serve with a strawberry cream whip about the base.
A sketch rather than a formula: the book assumes you already have a sweet yeast dough on hand and know how deep to make the well. The quantities below fill the gaps without changing the idea.
- What "rich bread dough" meansAn enriched yeast dough with egg, butter, sugar and milk, of the kind used for coffee cake or brioche. About 1 lb of risen dough lines a 9-inch shallow pan with enough left to build up the rim.
- Building the wellPress the dough thin over the base and thumb it up the sides to a wall 1 to 1 1/2 inches high, thicker than the floor. Let it rest 20 to 30 minutes before filling so the rim does not slump.
- OvenThe original gives none. Bake at 375F for 30 to 40 minutes, until the dough is browned at the rim and cooked through where the fruit meets it. A fruit-laden base stays damp, so err toward the longer time.
- Maple sugarScraped maple sugar means a hard cake of sugar shaved with a knife. Granulated maple sugar substitutes directly; use about 3/4 cup to 4 cups sliced rhubarb, which is tart enough to need it. Maple syrup is too wet here and will flood the dough.
- RhubarbSlice the stalks 1/2 inch thick, no need to peel young ones. Use only the stalks; rhubarb leaves are not edible. Tossing the slices with the sugar and a tablespoon of flour or cornstarch before filling keeps the juices from running out under the crust.
- Strawberry cream whipSweetened whipped cream folded with crushed or sieved strawberries, spooned around the base of the baked well rather than over the fruit. Whip the cream to firm peaks before adding the fruit or the juice will thin it.
- YieldA 9-inch well serves six, cut in wedges. Serve warm the day it is baked; the dough goes soggy overnight.
Rhubarb and maple sugar are the two things a northern household had in quantity at the same moment: the sugaring-off runs in late winter and the first rhubarb pushes up a few weeks later, long before any other fruit. Filled yeast-dough cakes of this shape belong to a broad European tradition of fruit kuchen, and the raised-rim "well" is simply a way to hold juicy fruit without rolling out pastry.