Dairy-Free Rhubarb Almond Cake

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A classic spring recipe, this rhubarb almond cake has a buttery almond base – with no butter in the mix – topped with rhubarb. Rich and not too sweet the cake has a nice balance between the almond, rhubarb, and vanilla flavours. This cake is made with eggs.

I love rhubarb. It’s one of my favourite things about spring, and I share a number of new rhubarb recipes every year. Here’s a vegan lemon rhubarb cake, and a really great German rhubarb crumble cake with a yeast base.

The crumb for this almond rhubarb cake is soft and a touch dense, very much like a coffee cake, so you can pack it up and cart it just about anywhere. It’s perfect for parties or picnics and a good way to use up some rhubarb. I always seem to end up with more than I can reasonably use and if you grow it yourself you’ll be familiar with the rhubarb glut of early spring. This recipe is adapted from my hazelnut fig cake, another great nut-based cake.

I first shared this recipe in 2018. It’s been updated with improvements to the recipe instructions and slight improvements to the recipe, new photos, including step-by-step photos, and more helpful information.

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Ingredients You’ll Need and Why

This is more along the lines of a traditional cake than you’ll usually see with my recipes, with eggs and sugar making up the bulk of the liquid ingredients. That’s because the cake needs more structure to account for the heavy rhubarb topping. These are my notes from recipe testing, and you can find the full recipe card below with complete measurements and instructions.

Rhubarb almond cake ingredients with labels.

Spelt flour: for the lightest cake, use light spelt flour (sifted/white spelt). Whole grain spelt is good but will make the cake a little heavier. As usual, plain all-purpose white flour can be substituted for light spelt.
Almond flour: another nut flour, like hazelnut, can replace almond. I do find hazelnut flour a bit strong here though. I usually use what’s called almond meal in North America, not the finer almond flour – both will work – because I can just get ‘ground almonds’ which is more equivalent to meal.
Sugar: just about any type of granulated sugar will work. I’ve tested with cane and coconut sugar, but white sugar would be fine, if a little less flavourful.
Milk: any non-dairy milk other than canned coconut milk will be fine. Dairy milk can be used if preferred.
Eggs: I did several tests to try to make this cake without eggs, and it simply doesn’t work. You don’t have the extra lift provided by lemon juice, and the rhubarb is otherwise too heavy and makes the cake claggy.
Vanilla: cardamom makes an excellent substitute for vanilla.

How to Make Rhubarb Almond Cake

This isn’t a one-bowl recipe, and I don’t recommend trying to change the method to make it into one. When I tested this recipe with different ingredients and methods it always turned out claggy and very heavy, but as written, it’s a very nicely textured cake with a slightly tighter crumb from the almond meal.

Cake steps 1 to 4, dry ingredients, wet ingredients, mixed, and in the tin.

Step 1: sift the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl and set aside. This removes any clumps from the almond and spelt flour. If you have any larger pieces of almond meal left in the sieve, simply turn them out into the bowl.

Step 2: beat the oil and sugar to combine. This won’t cream like butter and sugar will but it will become a little lighter. Beat in the eggs, milk, and vanilla to combine. Mix slowly at first to prevent milk from splashing, then whisk vigorously.

Step 3: add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and whisk until just combined. If you’re worried about over-mixing, switch to a spatula or wooden spoon to finish stirring.

Step 4: transfer to a prepared spring form pan. I recommend lining the base and greasing the sides, but if your pan is very old, you might want to line the whole pan. As you can see I never cut the paper into a round when I use a spring form, but just clamp a sheet of parchment to the base.

Step 5: top with the rhubarb in any pattern you like. Try to keep it fairly even across the cake, though, so that you’re not unevenly weighed down on one side, so that the cake rises evenly.

Step 6: bake until lightly golden and cool before serving. The sides of the tin can be removed after a few minutes – gently twist as you remove it in case some rhubarb is sticking – and the cake can be lifted off the base once it’s fully cooled.

Expert Tips for the Best Cake

Cut the rhubarb thinly: too big of chunks will weigh the cake batter down and cause under-baked sections.
Don’t over-mix: spelt is slightly delicate, and if over-mixed, will make for a tough, chewy cake.
Use the cake tin outlined: a smaller cake tin will make for a dense, unpleasant cake. It must be this large, for a fairly thin cake, or it won’t bake evenly.
Warm up the eggs: to quickly bring cold eggs up to room temperature, submerge them in a bowl of warm (not hot) water for five minutes.
Do any pattern you like: of course you don’t have to add the rhubarb in a pattern, if you just throw it on any old way, it’ll taste the same. Frozen rhubarb can be used in place of fresh but should be thawed first.

More Rhubarb Recipes

Stewed Rhubarb with Honey – a delicious simple way to cook rhubarb to serve with yogurt, ice cream, or anything else you’d like.
Rhubarb Ginger Muffins – sharp fresh ginger pairs well with rhubarb in these muffins, also featuring almond meal.
Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler – a little sweeter with fresh strawberries in the mix, this is topped with spelt biscuits.
Gluten Free Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp – with a topping made of chickpea flour and oats (you don’t taste chickpea).
And here’s a small collection of healthy rhubarb recipes!

If you make this Almond Rhubarb Cake or any other vegetarian dessert recipes on Occasionally Eggs, please take a moment to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. It’s such a help to others who want to try the recipe. For more OE, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, purchase the Occasionally Eggs cookbook, or subscribe for new posts via email.

About Alexandra Daum

Alexandra Daum is a professional recipe developer, food photographer, and cookbook author. She started sharing carefully tested vegetarian recipes in 2014 and has since published hundreds of recipes with seasonal ingredients and whole grains as the focus. Her work has been featured on CTV, in House & Home and Chatelaine, on popular websites like Buzzfeed and Best Health, and in countless other publications.