Plum Torte

Zutaten

1 cup (200 grams) plus 1 to 2 tablespoons granulated sugar (use less for sweeter plums)

1/2 cup (115 grams or 8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

2 large eggs

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder (ideally aluminum-free)

1/4 teaspoon sea salt

1 tsp vanilla

12 smallish purple Italian purple plums, halved and pitted

2 teaspoons (10 grams) fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Anweisungen

Heat oven to 350°F. Coat a 9-inch springform [I have this one] with butter or nonstick spray. For even easier removal, line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.

In a large bowl, beat butter and 1 cup (200 grams) of the sugar together with an electric mixer until fluffy and lighter in color. Add the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time and scraping down the bowl. Add lemon juice. Sift flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt over batter and mix it until just combined.

Spoon batter into prepared cake pan and smooth the top. Arrange the plum tightly in the pan, skin side up, all over the batter, covering it. Sprinkle the top with remaining sugar.

Bake until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into a center part of the cake comes out free of batter (but of course not plum juice), about 45 to 50 minutes. Cool on rack.

Once cool, if you can stand it, and I highly recommend trying, leave it at room temperature overnight as this cake is even better on the second day, when those plum juices further release into the cake around it, becoming not just “cake with plum,” but cakeplumughyum(official terminology, there). If planning more than 2 to 3 days out, I’ll store the cake in the fridge for longevity.

Notizen

Notes: I adapted this even more. Lemon juice and cinnamon go into the batter instead of sprinkled over the top. Added vanilla and upped the salt.

Marian Burros’s plum torte is a cult classic in which a mass of plums are coated with cinnamon sugar and baked into a pancake-like batter, where they melt into pie-like pockets and you definitely don’t want to miss it. It’s the perfect September baked good. This is ideal with blueish/purple Italian prune plums, but if you can’t find them, other plums will do. The internet is full of riffs on the cake, like cutting the sugar back to 3/4 cup (feel free to, although I didn’t find the 1 cup too sweet at all), with or without lemon juice, ranges of cinnamon (1 teaspoon is the original amount; 1 tablespoon was a typo that’s not bad at all, but I usually use the smaller amount). I’m not immune, either: I sometimes start by browning the butter and letting it cool to room temp before whisking the batter together by hand. In 2023, I’ve made a few minor updates: Sharing how I one-bowl the cake,and bumping up the salt (previously: a large pinch).