I love it when Italian prune plums start showing up at the farmers markets. Their season is relatively short so I buy them whenever I have the opportunity. The first plum dessert I made this season was a "Gingery Plum Cake" from BBC Good Food. The recipe was not written specifically for Italian plums, but most of the other types of plums available around here are cling fruits with pits that are very difficult to remove, so I don't bake with other plum varieties very often.
This recipe is written to be baked in a 9-inch square pan but I baked it in a 10-inch round pan. I lined the pan with parchment, buttered it, sprinkled on coarse sugar, and arranged halved Italian plums on top, with the cut side down. Then I made the cake batter on the stove by melting butter with dark brown sugar and golden syrup; cooling the mixture slightly; adding eggs and milk; and stirring in the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, ground ginger, and mixed spice; I also added baking powder since I was using all-purpose flour instead of self-raising flour, and I used this recipe to make a small amount of my own mixed spice). I poured the batter over the plums and put the pan in the oven to bake.
I cooled the cake briefly before turning it out of the pan. All of the plums stayed attached to the top of the cake except for a couple that stuck to the parchment paper; I put them back on top of the cake and no one was any the wiser. When the cake was completely cool I used a serrated knife to saw carefully through the plums. I liked this cake a lot. It was quite homey and rustic with a warm ginger-spice flavor. The combination of ginger with the tart plums was terrific.
My only complaint was that I thought the ratio of cake to fruit was too high. The cake was tall and rose right to the top of my 2-inch tall pan. While the cake tasted good, I think that a thinner layer of cake -- maybe cut down by at least a third -- would produce a better final product. Or you could just serve this cake with whipped cream and that would probably also do the trick. Still, I tend to think that the best plum desserts are simple ones, and this one was was simple and good.
Recipe: "Gingery Plum Cake" from BBC Good Food.
Other Plum Cakes:
This recipe is written to be baked in a 9-inch square pan but I baked it in a 10-inch round pan. I lined the pan with parchment, buttered it, sprinkled on coarse sugar, and arranged halved Italian plums on top, with the cut side down. Then I made the cake batter on the stove by melting butter with dark brown sugar and golden syrup; cooling the mixture slightly; adding eggs and milk; and stirring in the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, ground ginger, and mixed spice; I also added baking powder since I was using all-purpose flour instead of self-raising flour, and I used this recipe to make a small amount of my own mixed spice). I poured the batter over the plums and put the pan in the oven to bake.
My only complaint was that I thought the ratio of cake to fruit was too high. The cake was tall and rose right to the top of my 2-inch tall pan. While the cake tasted good, I think that a thinner layer of cake -- maybe cut down by at least a third -- would produce a better final product. Or you could just serve this cake with whipped cream and that would probably also do the trick. Still, I tend to think that the best plum desserts are simple ones, and this one was was simple and good.
Recipe: "Gingery Plum Cake" from BBC Good Food.
Other Plum Cakes:
- "A Plum Torte, Rearranged: Plfaumenkuchen (Ashkenazic Plum Coffee Cake)," October 15, 2017.
- "Doubly Delightful: Plum Cake with a Double Base," September 30, 2017.
- "The Pure Pleasure of Purple Plums: Purple Plum Tart (Plómukaka)," September 23, 2017.
- "Where's the Plum in My Plum Cake?: Spiced Plum Streusel Cake with Toffee Glaze," September 19, 2017.
- "Plum Pizza, Anyone?: Pflaumenstreuselkuchen (Yeasted Plum Cake with Streusel)," September 17, 2017.
- "Five Minutes to Plum Meh: Italian Purple Plum Cake," October 10, 2012.
- "Five Minutes to Plum Heaven: Plum Torte," September 3, 2012.
- "How Can Upside Down Be So Right?: Plum Upside-Down Cake," October 3, 2011.
- "Putting the 'Cake' Back into 'Coffeecake': Plum Streusel Coffeecake," September 30, 2011.
- "Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming: Crunchy-Topped Whole-Wheat Plum Cake," September 7, 2010.
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