Je suis la hot. It’s been too hot to bake lately.  This is the first dessert I’ve made in weeks, which is a mango-rhubarb number. Technically it was a bar-type dessert, although the consistency wasn’t what I consider to be a bar. It had cobbler-like qualities.

I adapted this from a recipe I found on The Rhubarb Compendium.  I added mango and ditched the icing sugar. It’s possible my results were skewed since I added the egg at the wrong stage.

Time required:  1.5 hrs

Yields: 12 servings

Cost per portion: $2.70

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $32.00

Kitchen implements I used:

• baking pan 9″ x 13″

Ingredients:

• 4 C rhubarb, washed and diced
• 3 C mango, peeled and cored and diced
• 1 C granulated white sugar
• 1 C dark brown sugar
• ½ C white shortening
• 1 egg
• 1 TSP baking soda
• ¼ TSP salt
• 1 TSP cinnamon
• 2 C flour
• ½ TSP vanilla

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 177°C / 350°F degrees. Grease and flour baking pan.

2. Place rhubarb and mango into a large bowl. Mix in half of the white sugar. Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, cream shortening, remaining white sugar, and brown sugar.

4. In a small bowl, combine baking soda, salt, cinnamon and flour. Add to wet mixture.

5. Mix in egg and vanilla.

6. Combine wet mixture with fruit, smoosh batter in baking pan.

7. Bake 40 min. Cool on rack at least one hour.

8. Cut into “squares”. Hmmm. Something doesn’t look quite right. This definitely did not leave the pan in a perfect square.

Verdict: I liked this but Boyfriend did not.

He said the texture was “squishy”. Parts of the bar were crunchy, and parts were soft, and I’m not sure why. The rhubarb was crunchy, which makes sense because it was not stewed yet I wasn’t expecting crunchy fruit in a baked dish. It wasn’t bad, just different. I found the mango flavour a little overwhelming, so next time I’d drop the mango entirely and stew the rhubarb prior to baking. But if I was going to do all of that I’d just make a cobbler instead.

Overall I liked this but it wasn’t my favourite rhubarb dish that I’ve made.

Update July 26, 2011: the next day this dessert turned into mush. I’m not sure if it was caused by the heat wave we’re experiencing, or if this particular mix of ingredients don’t hold up well, but I won’t be making this again.

Playlist: Adele