plum cake

Today we bottled wine for the Leap of Faith home wine making group. We work now in John and Cyndi's garage (so we can call ourselves "garagistes"). They have hot and cold running water and electricity, things lacking in the old carriage house we used for years. While the carriage house has apple, fig and lemon trees - John and Cyndi's has a plum tree. On the counter were these perfectly ripe plums - asking to be eaten and to be baked in a plum cake. Cyndi asked for the recipe - so here it is. The picture above is a pluot cake from last fall and the pictures below are from today.

"Brunelleschi's Dome" by Ross King is a highly recommended book for those interested in how an enormous Renaissance dome is constructed. John read it before their trip to Italy...



Plum Cake
adapted from a recipe at "Sweet Amandine"

1 C flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Zest of 1 lemon
3/4 C. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 C. canola oil
1 tsp. vanilla
4-5 plums, pluots, or other small stone fruit (or 1-2 C. berries)
1 T. raw sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 8 or 9 inch springform pan and slice fruit thinly. Mix flour, baking powder, lemon zest - add sugar, eggs, vanilla and oil. Stir till mixture forms a thick batter. Place batter in pan and arrange fruit on top. Sprinkle with raw sugar and bake for 50-60 minutes. Do not over bake - but do remove as soon as cake tester in center comes out clean.

I've made this cake with pluots and with plums - and will see tomorrow how the plum version turned out.