Plum Cake

Serves 12

Ingredients

Topping
60 g butter
110g caster sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs

Cake:
180 g softened butter
150 g caster sugar
135 g plain flour
135 g self raising flour
pinch of salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
70 ml milk
½ cup ground almonds or fresh breadcrumbs
8-10 ripe plums, halved and stoned

 

Summary

This is Stephanie Alexander’s favourite plum recipe and it might be ours too! The tangy, sweet plums sit amongst a topping of cinnamon, sugar and butter creating a jammy, caramelised layer like no other. It’s delicious as is but predictably cream doesn’t go astray…

Plum Cake

Preheat the oven to 180˚C and lightly grease a 26cm springform tin.

To make the topping, melt butter and stir in sugar and cinnamon, then allow to cool. Once cool, whisk in eggs.

For the main cake batter, cream butter and sugar for about 5 mins, until light and fluffy. Using a wooden spoon mix in flours and salt. Whisk eggs with milk, then add to flour mixture and mix to make a softish dough (it should drop from the spoon).

Spoon batter into prepared tin (it shouldn’t fill more than a quarter of the depth, as the cake rises a great deal), smooth the top and sprinkle over ground almonds. Arrange plums on top, cut-side up. Spoon topping over and around plums. Bake for 50 min – 1 hour and 15 mins  (it really depends on your oven, keep an eye  on it in the last 30 mins) until a fine skewer inserted comes out clean.

Allow to cool in the tin for at least 30 mins before carefully releasing the sides and transferring to a plate.

Serve warm with cream or ice-cream.