Easy Plum Cake

I was in a dilemma whether to put up this post after having tasted this Plum Cake.

Initially I was so pleased with the look of this cake when it was taken out from the oven. I was so eager to share the recipe that I actually started typing it out while the cake was cooling off. I really like the nice golden crust rising above the sunken plums, and it looked lovely in this ovenproof dish.


Lately, I have been buying fresh plums whenever I passed by the fruit stalls. I am not a fan of plums, until I came across this variety...they are slightly oval in shape, and look very much like huge prunes. They are much sweeter than the usual plums and the skin is less tart. It was later on when I dropped by the supermart that I realised they are known as Sierra Prunes.

I have came across a few nice plum cake recipes posted by bloggers, but when I saw this apricot cake recipe from this book, Easy as Cake, I thought it is too simple a cake to give it a miss, although I was totally clueless how the cake will turn out, and I have never tasted a plum cake before. And I do believe it is a much healthier choice as only a small amount of oil is used with no butter added.


When freshly baked, the crust of the cake was a little hard and crisp, the texture was almost similar to biting into a piece of cookie. The cake was crumbly and a little on the dry side. Those parts near the fruits were moist though and it tasted alright. Nothing fantastic, just ok. However, I don't really know what to say about the plums...somehow, after baking, the fruits have lost their fresh taste :(


This photo was taken on the day that the cake was baked. I read that some plum cakes will be firm and crumbly when first baked, after leaving it overnight, the texture will become softer. True enough, when I had a slice the next morning, the crust was no longer crisp, and the cake was softer and moist.


Here's the photo of the cake that was left overnight on the table. Sad to say, all of us didn't like it at all...and the plums were a great disappointment, they became rather soggy and tasteless! Naturally, I was left with more than half of the cake. Luckily, I didn't make the full amount of the recipe...otherwise I would have a big problem! I kept the rest of the cake in the fridge and almost wanted to give up posting this recipe. It was only the following day, when I took out the cake to try to finish whatever I could, that I discovered that it actually tasted much better when chilled. In fact, the plums wasn't that soggy, and I even found the taste refreshing?! It was this twist that I decided I should still proceed with this post, at least just for record purpose!

Ingredients

3 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
1 ¼ cups plain flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
8 fresh plums, pitted and halved
2 tablespoons brown sugar

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C, lightly grease and line a 11¾ x 9¼ x 1½ inch pan with parchment paper.
2. In a mixing bowl, with a manual whisk, whisk eggs and sugar until sugar almost dissolved. Add in vanilla extract and oil, mix well.
3. Sieve over flour and baking powder, whisk till the flour mixture is fully incorporated and the batter becomes smooth.
4. Pour batter into the prepared pan and arrange the plums cut side down, on top of the batter.
5. Sprinkle with brown sugar and bake for 45 mins, or until golden brown.

Recipe source: adapted from Easy as Cake by Ruth Jolles