Rhubarb Yorkshire Pudding is a riff on an old Shaker recipe. Like a classic French clafouti, it’s a combination of a flour-milk-egg batter, fresh fruit and sugar cooked in a hot pan in a hot oven so that it puffs up like a popover.

Later in the summer, substitute fresh cherries or plums for the rhubarb, and try apples in the fall. Just be sure to adjust the amount of sugar you use depending on how sweet the fruit is.

Rhubarb Yorkshire Pudding

• ¼ cup butter (half a stick) cut into chunks
• ¾ cup flour
• ½ tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup milk
• ½ tsp. vanilla
• 1 mounded cup of rhubarb chopped into ½ inch chunks (1-2 sticks)
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
• grated rind of one orange

Preheat the oven to 425 ℉. For the last several minutes of preheating, put a 10” ceramic or enameled pie plate into the oven to heat (don’t use a plain metal pie plate – it will react with the juices from the rhubarb).

Meanwhile, put the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and whisk together well. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture.

In a separate bowl, whisk the two eggs just until well combined, then mix in the milk and vanilla. Pour this mixture slowly into the well in the flour mixture, whisking the flour from the edge of the well little by little into the egg mixture as you pour (this keeps the mixture from becoming lumpy). Stop mixing as soon as the last of the flour is completely combined in the batter.

Remove the pie plate from the oven, drop the chunks of butter into it and put it back into the oven until the butter is melted and bubbling. It’s okay if it browns a little – just don’t let it burn.

Meanwhile, toss the rhubarb well with half of the sugar, the orange rind and the cinnamon.

When the butter is bubbling, remove the pie plate from the oven and set it on top of the stove. Make sure you close the oven door again, so the oven stays very hot. Swirl the pie plate a little to evenly distribute the melted butter.

Pour the batter into the middle of the pie plate. This will push the butter off to the sides. That’s okay – ignore the temptation to stir! Scatter the rhubarb over the batter, leaving about an inch or so around the edges with no rhubarb on it. Then sprinkle the other half of the sugar over the rhubarb. Put the pudding into the oven.

Let it bake for about 15 minutes then rotate the pudding so it cooks evenly. Try to move quickly and don’t bang the oven door or the pudding might not rise properly. It will be done in about another 10 minutes – the top and bottom will be golden brown and it will have puffed beautifully, especially around the edges.

Allow it to sit for a few minutes before serving. Scoop it into bowls and top it with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, or, as the Shakers did, pass around a pitcher of cold heavy cream.