While my husband and I stayed holed up at home during the early months of the pandemic, we eventually started going back to the farmers market (everyone wears masks and stays socially distanced while navigating the outdoor market, which has been re-designed into a one-way loop). Every summer I look forward to the time that Italian prune plums start appearing at the farmers market, and this year was no exception. They're my favorite variety of plums to use for baking because they are freestone fruits and relatively firm even when they're ripe -- so they're very easy to slice neatly and you don't have to worry about smushing the fruit or having juice running everywhere.
For my first Italian plum recipe of the summer, I made an Almond-and-Plum Snack Cake recipe from Miro Uskokovic, the pastry chef at Gramercy Tavern in NYC. The recipe is straightforward, but it requires you to break out the food processor and dirty a few bowls. You start out by blitzing sugar, softened butter, crumbled almond paste, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest in the food processor. You add eggs while the processor is running, followed by sour cream. Then you add the contents of the food processor to a mixture of cake flour and all-purpose flour and whisk to combine. You spread the batter into a parchment-lined pan; sprinkle more crumbled almond paste over the batter; arrange sliced plums that have been tossed with lemon juice on top; and finish with a sprinkling of sliced almonds and sugar.
I thought this cake was very pretty after slicing. You could see nuggets of almond paste that had sunk into the middle of the cake and I loved the beautiful red color from the plum skins. But more importantly, this cake tasted fantastic. It had a very tight, fine crumb that was downy soft, with an exceptional mouthfeel. The addition of sour cream and flavor-packed marzipan bits created something that felt downright luxurious. The ratio of tart plums to cake was perfect (I make a lot of plum cakes and often find that there is too much cake to too little fruit). This beautiful cake was homey and comforting, and yet felt quite special. I look forward to making it again next plum season!
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