Rhubarb-brown sugar plain cake

Does it ever seem that you run out of a lot of basic ingredients at once? My kitchen cupboards have been empty lately, and I  haven't even had time to stock up. May is a very busy month for substitute teachers, as schools run their last workshops of the year and teachers take a day off here and there to celebrate the return of the hot, sunny weather, or just to recover and write report cards. June is a different story, which means I should have lots more time to bake. Apparently I need the practice, as I broke 2 bowls getting this cake made.

This week's recipe, chosen by Cindy of Everyday Insanity, was originally for a blueberry cake. I love blueberries in cake, but it's rhubarb season here. I did not get a chance to preserve any, so I am using what I've got in the fridge everywhere possible, as it's gone to seed and there'll only be a bit more in the late summer, but that's it. Sniff, sniff. The recipe called for all-purpose flour and whole milk, but I was out of these, so I substituted cake flour and orange juice. Actually, I ran out of cake flour too, so there is also ⅓ cup of buckwheat flour in mine, along with 2 cups of thinly sliced rhubarb. Instead of cinnamon I used a citrus-vanilla extract. And who has an 11"x17" pan? Not me. I used a 10" springform instead.

This recipe is called 'plain cake', but it was a bit fussy in its preparation. It called for separating the eggs and folding the beaten whites into the batter at the end, just before adding the fruit. I was going to skip that part and just add the whole eggs to the batter, but I had changed so many other things that I followed the directions for once.  A small part of them, at least. The cake turned out to be delicious, I am happy to report. It had an interesting citrus flavour from the juice and extract, and a tart, jammy layer of rhubarb mostly near the bottom. It was very tender and moist, and the buckwheat added speckles and a faint taste too. It was quite sweet, as is typical for this book's recipes, so I was glad to have the sourness of the rhubarb to balance it out. It would be great with a bit of cream, if you didn't want to serve it plain. Since it was so yummy, I guess I can leave off grocery shopping for another day and see what kind of substitutions I can come up with next. I still have a few things in the cupboard...