Brown Sugar Plum Cakes

97 CommentsSaturday • July 4, 2009 • by Ari

As far as summer fruit goes, I often feel like plums don’t get the attention they deserve. I love strawberries, blueberries and raspberries as much as the next gal, but even these succulent fruits can’t match the sheer variety of vibrant reds, purples and yellows of the plum. Plus, there’s nothing quite like biting into a sweet, juicy plum on a warm summer day. At least, as far as I’m concerned.

In season from May through October, there are over 2,000 kinds of plums in the world with over 100 of them being available in the United States. Last week Whole Foods had a particularly tempting display of Satsuma Plums in the produce section and I went a little crazy stocking up on these red fleshed, purple skinned beauties. Can you blame me? One must enjoy life’s little pleasures where they can be found!

By this morning only two plums were left and I decided that something special was in order, it being the 4th of July and all. So after breakfast I whipped up a simple brown sugar cake batter, then split each plum in half, removed the pits and pressed the plum halves into the cake batter, cut side up. After sprinkling the plums with extra brown sugar the cakes baked for thirty minutes, during which time the almond-scented batter rose enough to envelope the fruit. We ate them warm and topped with French vanilla ice cream while sitting outside, listening to the neighborhood kids set off fireworks and scream with unrestrained glee. It was a delicious way to take a break from packing boxes for our upcoming move, now two weeks away.

For the photos shown here I removed a bit of cake on top so you could see the succulent plum inside. Ordinarily it’s not necessary to do this though. In fact, I think there’s a certain charm that comes with breaking through the top of the cake with your spoon, ice cream slowly melting on the top, only to discover the deep purple plum juices inside.

It’s been a few weeks since my last blog post and for that I must apologize. I needed to put Baking and Books on the back burner for a bit while I figured out my post-graduation work schedule. Balance, that’s what I needed. Did I mention that I finished graduate school? Well I did! And I have two new jobs, one as the Judaism Guide for About.com and another as the Director of Programming at a synagogue in Connecticut. Also, as I mentioned above, we’re moving to a new apartment. And there’s another super-secret development on the horizon too, but I can’t spill the beans on that one yet.

So you can see why I was MIA for a bit, yes? But I’m going to make it up to you by giving away a fun new book in this post called Cookie Swap: Creative Treats to Share Throughout the Year. Rather than the monthly book giveaway (which is time consuming and expensive at times) I’ve decided to randomly raffle off books in posts. Are you ready?

If you would like to win a copy of Cookie Swap please tell me in the comments what your favorite kind of cookie is and why. I’ll randomly pick a winner next week.

Plum Recipes on Other Blogs:

• Plum Upside Down Cake at Simply Recipes
• Plum and Peach Crisp Recipe at 101 Cookbooks
• Dimply Plum Cake at Smitten Kitchen
• Plum Cupcakes with Sweet-Corn Ice Cream at Zoë Bakes

Brown Sugar Plum Cakes
Adapted from Baking with Julia, by Dorie Greenspan.

Ingredients: Makes 4 single-serving cakes

• 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 2 large, ripe plums, halved and pitted

Special equipment: 4 large ramekins or oven-safe baking dishes

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Coat your baking dishes with PAM baking spray.

In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or with a hand-held mixer, cream the butter, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and the granulated sugar together on medium speed for 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for 3 minutes more, or until the mixture turns white. Increase the speed to high and add the eggs one at a time, beating for 30 seconds between additions. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add the vanilla and almond extracts, beating on high for 30 seconds more.

On low speed add the flour 1/4 cup at a time, then the baking soda, beating for 15 seconds. Add the milk and mix again for a few seconds, then finish the mixing process by hand to prevent over mixing the batter.

Divide the batter among your baking dishes. Place a plum half, cut side up, into each dish, gently pushing it down into the batter. Don’t push it in too far, you want to leave some of it above batter level. Sprinkle an equal amount of the remaining brown sugar over each plum.

Place the dishes on a cookie pan, then bake for 30 minutes until the cakes are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the cake part of the dessert comes out clean. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving warm, topped with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream if you like.

These cakes will keep for one day, wrapped airtight and at room temperature.