- Serves 10 to 12 - Ready in 2 hours (includes 30 minutes cooling time) -
*uses up 450g of plums / 8-12 whole plums*
Adapted slightly from the 'Plum, Vanilla and Soured Cream Cake' Waitrose recipe.
Gather together...
150g butter, grated / sliced and softened in the heating-up oven for 3 minutes.
450g fresh plums - weighed with stones still in (I usually use 8 - 12 'Victoria' plums, but these fruits greatly vary in size by variety, so do weigh them).
200g sugar, white caster / granulated (I used golden caster sugar as I happened to have some).
150g plain flour (sieved).
2 tsp baking powder (sieved).
1/4 tsp salt (fine-grained 'table' salt, not coarse).
100g ground almonds.
3 medium eggs (beaten).
1 tsp vanilla extract (the Taylor & Colledge brand is fairtrade certified / the Dr Oetker brand is alcohol free).
150g plain yoghurt (or you can use sour cream).
Serve with...
1 tbsp honey (warmed on the hob).
Get baking...
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 C (160 C fan) or Gas 4.
2. Put the 150g of (sliced) butter in a heat-proof small bowl and soften it for 3 minutes in the heating-up oven (or grate it instead, but I hate grating things). Set a timer so you don't forget it. Don't worry if it is quite melted when you remove it (be careful, the bowl will be very hot already!) as this is far better than trying to use butter that is too firm.
3. Meanwhile butter-grease a 23cm (9 inch) deep, spring form / loose bottomed cake tin. Line the base with greaseproof paper, or better still with a cut-to-size reusable baking liner (such as this from Lakeland), then butter the lined base.
4. Place the plums in TWO equal piles. Half of the plums need to be chopped ROUGHLY into small pieces (16ths) and half need to be sliced NEATLY into eighths. REMOVE the stones as you go. Set the two piles of plum pieces (one pile roughly chopped, one pile neatly sliced) aside for later.
5. In a large mixing bowl, beat the 150g of softened butter with the 200g of sugar, for circa 1 minute, until light and fluffy, you can do this by hand with a spoon or with an electric food mixer.
6. Sieve in the 150g of plain flour, also sieve in the 2 tsp of baking powder, add the 1/4 tsp of salt and the 100g of ground almonds. Don't stir yet - you don't want to over-mix the cake and make it tough!
7. To the mixing bowl add the 3 beaten eggs, the 1 tsp of vanilla extract and the 150g of plain yoghurt. Now give everything a good stir to combine. This will take about a minute with a spoon, or less time if you are using a food mixer.
8. Tip HALF of the cake mixture into the prepared (greased and base-lined) tin. Scatter just the ROUGHLY chopped pieces of plum onto the layer of mixture and spread them out evenly across the tin.
9. Pour the rest of the cake mixture into the tin. Arrange the carefully NEATLY sliced pieces of plum as you wish - if they won't all fit then eat any spares.
10. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes (although check the cake after 1 hour) until it is golden and a skewer / knife, inserted vertically into the middle of the cake, comes out clean.
11. Remove the cake from the oven and leave it to firm up in its tin for 30 minutes, on a cooling rack.
12. Meanwhile, heat the 1 tbsp of honey in a small pan on the hob, until it is liquidy enough to pour (this will only take about 30 seconds). Pour the warm, runny honey over the cake and spread it over the entire flat surface with a spoon, as a glaze.
13. The cake is delicious whilst still warm or when cold. Once the cake has fully cooled, keep it in an air tight container in the fridge and eat it up within three days.
Adapted slightly from this 'Plum, Vanilla and Soured Cream Cake' Waitrose recipe - I used a larger tin (my smaller tin wasn't going to be deep enough!) so I added more plums, I swapped the sour cream for yoghurt (which we always have to hand) and I added the ingredients all at the same time (after creaming the butter and sugar) to reduce the washing up generated! Thank you to my sister for the stunning garden plums and thank you to the 'Waste Not Want Not' blog on Instagram for introducing me to the gorgeous Waitrose recipe at exactly the perfect moment.