A few drops of natural red food colouring helps to intensify the pinkness of the rhubarb but if you don’t want to use it try replacing it with 2 tbsp Grenadine or 4 tbsp raspberry jelly. 

Serves  4

What You’ll Need: 

• 4 slices Rankin Selection fruit soda
• 2 tbsp softened butter
• 4 tbsp icing sugar plus extra for final dusting

Lemon Drizzle Syrup

• Juice of 1 lemon
• 60g icing sugar

Rhubarb

• 225g young stalks of rhubarb, trimmed
• 80g caster sugar
• zest of 1 lemon
• few drops of natural red food colouring
• whipped cream or crème fraiche and fresh raspberries, to serve
• finely grated lemon zest, to decorate (optional)

What To Do: 

• To make the lemon drizzle syrup, warm the lemon juice with the icing sugar in a small pan or in the microwave until the sugar dissolves. Leave to cool.
• To cook the rhubarb, slice the rhubarb into 3cm pieces. Put into a medium-sized pan with the sugar, lemon zest and food colouring and place over a medium heat. Almost immediately the rhubarb begins to release some liquid which will prevent it from sticking but you may need to stir it a bit. Cook for about 8 minutes. Remove from the heat when the rhubarb is tender but still holding its shape.
• Take a baking tray that the soda farl slices will all fit into snuggly.  Pour in the lemon syrup, tilting it to spread it evenly. Butter each soda farl slice right to the edges and then arrange them on top of the syrup – buttered side up. Finally give them a generous dusting of icing sugar.
• Preheat the grill to high. Carefully toast the soda farl slices until the icing sugar dissolves and begins to glaze. Transfer one slice to each serving plate and spoon over the cooked rhubarb with the mounds of whipped cream or crème fraiche. Decorate with lemon zest, if liked and add a light dusting of icing sugar. Serve with the raspberries.

Recipe from Paul Rankin.

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