Ice cream season is over.
( Don’t despair. It will be back for Thanksgiving. Creamy vanilla bean scoops work well with pumpkin and apple pie. But I digress).
September around here is a blur so keeping it simple is best with the stone fruit harvest.
Love me my peaches and plums. If you’re nice, I won’t throw my pits at you.
Ontario prune plums are reliable little gems, tucked into tarts and cakes.
Stop in at your local grocer on the way home from work this week and pick up some of these before they’re gone. Perfect for lunch boxes, or inside a buttery, juicy, simplest-ever-to-whip-up cake.
Idiot-Proof Plum Cake
There are a million versions of this cake kicking around cookbooks.
Here’s mine, tweaked the way I like it.
What you need:
I cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of kosher salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup ( one stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 extra large eggs
6-8 prune plums ( depending on size)
3 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon mixed with 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
9 inch springform pan
What you do:
- Heat oven to 350 F.
- Halve the plums and remove pits.
- Sift flour, baking powder and salt in medium bowl.
- Cream soft butter and sugar in mixer until fluffy, about 4 minutes.
- Add eggs, one at time, and mix in, scraping sides of bowl as necessary.
- Add dry ingredients and mix briefly.
- Turn batter into greased pan.
- Arrange plum halves, skin side up, over the batter. If you cut up too many, too bad…you’ll just have to eat them
- Pour lemon juice over the plums.
- Sprinkle with the sugar/cinnamon mix.
- Bake for 45-55 minutes-until a tester poked in middle comes out clean of batter. Cool on rack.
Best served when left for a day, covered. But good luck with that.
If you have unexpected company and want to dress this up, throw on a tiny dollop of whipped cream. But the cake is delicious by itself.
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