To quote The Secret Life of Bees author, Sue Monk Kid, it has been so long between blog posts "long enough for the full moon to fade away and grow back full again." Who writes like that? Take-my-breath-away! In case you have never read the book, you should. Every morsel of the novel is delicious... almost as delicious as this cake... almost.
Well, for when this blog hits stratospheric numbers, and people are curious why there was a month and a half between this post and my last post, the reason is ridiculously mundane. Really busy. Work, kids, running (or trying to), reading books, going out with girlfriends (shout out!), watching movies... it is hard to keep up.
But what a delight it was for me to have a pile of plums in my kitchen, and a plum cake recipe in my hands! Return of the blog post! Yippee!
Apparently, this cake is the celebrity of cakes... maybe like Princess Kate Middleton in the world of cakes. It was featured in the Essential New York Times Cookbook, among other places. I found it on Smitten Kitchen.
My 3 year old daughter and I whisked it up last night, which subsequently led to all sorts of short comments and ultimatums to make sure it was not touched until today. Thank goodness, the princess of plum cakes survived in our house one night, untouched.
But it was certainly gobbled up today... and I wonder why I keep putting on weight!
Plum Cake
from Smitten Kitchen (again!)
Ingredients:
- 1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder (the aluminum-free kind, if you can find it)
- Large pinch of salt
- 1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar plus 1 to 2 tablespoon (depending on sweetness of plums)
- 1/2 cup (115 grams or 8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 12 smallish purple Italian purple plums, halved and pitted
- 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon or tablespoon ground cinnamon
Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grab yourself a springfoam pan. I didn't even know what that was, but guess what, I had one in my pantry! Too cool. It looks like this:
2) Combine flour, salt and baking powder in a mixing bowl.
3) In another bowl, cream sugar and butter. Most sane people would use an electric mixer... we don't have one, so Molly and I used forks... she ate a lot of butter and sugar... sigh
4) Add eggs to the creamed sugar, and mix, then toss in the flour combo.
5) Mix it all together, plop it into the springfoam pan, spread the thick dough out so it is smooth.
6) Pop the plums on top, sprinkle with the lemon juice, cinnamon and a little extra sugar if you like, and cook for 45-50 minutes.
7) As Deb says in Smitten Kitchen, try to wait until the next day, it really is worth it!
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