In Danish, this dessert is called rødgrød med fløde, literally “red porridge with cream,” though in this type of porridge, there are no grains—just peak-season berries (and sometimes rhubarb) gently simmered into a silky and tart fruit soup.
Fruit porridges are common across Scandinavia, from blueberry to rose hip, made with fruit harvested at the height of its season. A piece of advice about sugar: Start with less—you can always serve a little extra at the table for those who want more sweetness.
If you ever visit Denmark, be prepared: Danes delight in hearing foreigners trip over the famously tricky name of this dessert in Danish. It took me ages to master it myself, but now it rolls off my tongue as smooth as the cream that gets poured over each serving.
This gluten-free cake is simple to put together and so pretty. You can use virtually any fruit (think apricots in the summer or figs in the fall) to sit atop, but I love the sour rhubarb, as it marries so nicely with the sweet almond-flavored cake. I grow a small patch of rhubarb in the yard, but it's not the most successful crop because it prefers a cooler climate to Santa Barbara’s. Luckily, it’s available at our farmers market. It’s a perfect celebration of spring, and the positioning of the rhubarb on top looks like a woven basket when it’s put together.
Though we claim to be rhubarb purists as our grandmother was, we do believe it pairs very well with tart raspberries.