Cake

Plums plums plums plums!

12/13/2009 05:49:00 PM


Biggest discovery of 2009. I have a freakin' huge plum tree in my front yard!

And it has a lot of fruit.


Yes, a LOT of fruit...

When I was a kid, this tree would bear fruit every single summer. I have vivid memories of standing under the tree picking off the sweet plums and eating these juicy juicy fruit. Then one year, it stopped giving fruit and I kinda forgot all about it. Until last week, when the abundance of plums in the front yard was brought to my attention.

If you have a look below, you'll see that they are small yellow (sometimes green) plums, and are very very juicy.


Yesterday, we had my friend An over for a casual lunch - Nigella's maple chicken 'n' ribs, no dessert planned (really!). After we'd eaten, we suddenly decided we'd like a little something sweet, and we whipped up some plum cake. We made it on the fly, based on Nigel Slater's very fast nectarine and blackberry cake. Sandra and An stoned the plums, and I made the cake batter - a simple Victoria Sponge, which we baked in mini-loaf tins. We sprinkled over demerara sugar for extra crunch.


25 minutes in the oven, and ta-dah!


I loved the way the cakes billowed up crispily. Because the plums were so very juicy, the cakes were very very soft, and I had to be very careful to get them out of the tin without breaking them. For some reason, they also turned out quite buttery, almost greasy. Perhaps I didn't cream the butter and sugar sufficiently?


However, apart from that, the cakelets were very tasty, with a great contrast between the sweet cake and sharp plums. I'm also a big fan of crispy edges, so I'm really happy we made them in mini! We ate them hot, with cold cold cream. Divine.


Now that I'm in the mood for plums, I've got heaps and heaps of things I want to make - Pflaummenkuchen, Pflaumenkrapfen (German plum DONUTS), plum tart, plum crumble, plum jam...

Anyone got any great ideas on what to do with an abundance of yellow plums??

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7 comments

  1. How about some form of pickled plum so that it's both sweet and sour and maybe with a touch of chilli?

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  2. yummm! and free plums.. bonus!
    my aunty has two massive plum trees, I'm waiting for her to harvest!

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  3. How exciting!! I love this recipe:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/21/dining/216frex.html

    You could also make jam?

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  4. How funny - I also used to make plum cakes like these a while back (don't know why I stopped) but they too turned out exceptionally buttery/oily. But they weren't so when the batter was used with apples. Hmm...

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  5. Those plums look gorgeous - like giant gooseberries! Love the sound of that plum cake. If you can deal with any more cake, the winter plum cake in HTBADG is so yum.

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  6. I love unripened plums- grew up eating them as I grew impatient with the backyard tree!

    Nice Job! I'm hooked on the buttery Plum Cakes at fleischer continental cakes, Glenferrie Rd Malvern

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  7. We also had a plum tree back when I was young! When it harvesting time comes, plums are overflowing!

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