I love the taste and texture of cooked plums. Plum jam is mouth-puckeringly delicious. Somehow when the plums cook, they concentrate and the richness, sweetness and tanginess all intensifies into something much more decadent than the raw version. Even the plum color becomes more bold and jewel-like when cooked.
One thing that really complements plums is almonds. Almonds are rich, buttery and almost creamy. They are sometimes a bit bland which is exactly what you need to balance out the intense tang of baked plums.
About a year ago I wrote about making a recipe your own. The recipe in question was a plum cake and I shared the changes I made to suit myself and encouraged you to do the same. So with a bag of French plums as my inspiration, I revisited this recipe yet again. The biggest change I made was in substituting some of the flour with almond meal. What possessed me to purchase almond meal, I cannot say. But there it was, along with the bag of plums, taunting me, "c'mon I dare ya, do something with us!" And so I did.
Note: If you don't have almond meal, feel free to revert to the recipe posted earlier.
Plum Cake Redux
Ingredients
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup butter; softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
10-12 French plums; halved & pitted
Topping:
2 Tablespoons granulated turbinado sugar (or regular sugar)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and sides of a 9 or 10 inch springform pan. If you don't have a springform pan, grease well, it will pop right out of the pan if you flip it upside down on a plate then invert onto a cake plate to serve.
Mix together flour, almond meal, baking powder, and salt. Beat together butter and sugar, at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. At low speed, beat flour mixture into butter mixture. Spoon batter into prepared pan, spreading evenly. Arrange plum halves, skin sides up, on top of batter. Mix together sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over top of cake.
Bake cake until golden brown, about an hour or until done. Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool slightly.
Enjoy!
