Plum cake
The Magpie and I were invited for an incredible homemade Thai dinner at Susan and Fred’s home tonight. I had offered to bring something and she suggested dessert. Because I knew we’d be having rich coconut milk Thai curries, I thought something like a tart dessert, such as a lemon pie might be good. In our house, we had lemons, limes, plums, peaches, blueberries, raspberries and dates as options. After looking through a bunch of recipes, I decided to cook something new from the Simply Recipes site run by Elise, as her recipes are so consistently good and do-able.
I adopted this recipe from Elise’s “Plum Upside Down Cake“. We used delicious tart Damson plums rather than Santa Rosa plums, and made a single large cake rather than the individual cakes Elise called for. The cake took about 35 minutes to cook and had a nice brown color.
I think Elise must have done nice thin fruit slices like on a tarte tatin, as her recipe only called for four plums in the ramekins. We just halved them and it took about 10 plums to do a full 9″ cake pan.
What I loved about this cake was the thin layer of cake, the fruit layer on top, and the carmelized butter and brown sugar topping. The plums just tasted so good.
I made one stupid mistake with this cake, which was that I used a springform pan instead of a regular pan and ended up having some of the butter burn and carmelize on the pan.
Simply Recipes Plum Upside Down Cake (modified)
Ingredients
Cake base (which becomes the topping):
- 3/4 stick butter (6 Tbsp)
- 1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp brown sugar, firmly packed
- 10 plums, pitted and sliced
Cake layer:
- 4 Tbsp butter, softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- Zest of 1/2 an orange
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 Tbsp milk plus 2 teaspoons milk and 1 teaspoon lemon juice, combined
- 3/4 cup All-Purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- Pinch salt
Method
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter the side walls of a 9″ cake pan.
Cake Base.
Melt 3/4 stick of butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and whisk until smooth. Pour into the prepared cake pan.
Cut plums in half and place them in concentric circles on top of the brown sugar butter – it’s piping hot, so please be very careful.
Cake Base will become the pretty cake top.
Cake Layer.
Combine milk and lemon juice in a small bowl (this will make the milk curdle), and set aside while you do the other stuff. Note: you could substitute 5 Tbsps of buttermilk if you have it on hand (which I never do).
Use an electric mixer to beat together the 4 Tbsp butter with the granulated sugar and orange zest. Add the eggs and vanilla, mix to combine. Alternately add the dry ingredients (cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt) and the lemon soured milk mixture to the batter.
Right before baking.
Baking.
Pour the batter onto the plums taking care to spread gently. The pictures show that I used a springform pan, but do not use it as the butter mixture bubbled out of it. A normal 9″ cake pan will work best. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until cakes are firm to the touch, and a toothpick or skewer inserted in the center does not come out with raw batter on it. (Might be wet from plum juice.) Turn the cake pan around half-way through the baking to ensure an even baking for all the cakes.
Remove from oven and let cool on a rack until no longer hot to the touch. (We had to run to the party so I cheated and let mine cool in the freezer for about 15 minutes.) Invert onto a plate and gently lift off of the plate.
