PLUM CRUMBLE CAKE
Plums will forever remind me of the Indian summers of my childhood. Where afternoons are bathed in a soft golden light with trees and bushes suddenly awash in vibrant reds, oranges and yellows. Where leaves rustle amongst your feet as you walk and a slight fear of conkers dropping on your head arises every time you pass a chestnut tree. In Munich, now is the time where bakeries are flooded with traybakes of “Zwetschgendatschi”, which is a yeasted cake topped with quartered plums. Well actually damsons, which is a type of plum, but a little more sour and astringent than the typical plums here. Not that delicious when raw, but transformed magically when baked – turning into that perfect combination of sweet and sour.
Saturday afternoon you set off to your local bakery and bring home squares of cake (they must be square, otherwise its not the real thing!), smother it with whipped cream (ideally out of a spray can for full authenticity), sit in the late afternoon sun and wash everything down with copious amounts of coffee. Gossip about the neighbours, discuss family, relieve summer memories and then wonder whether you can still be bothered to make dinner.
Perhaps unsurprising, I’ve not found damsons in any London supermarkets. Also, I do not often have time to make yeasted doughs (the kneading, the rising, the knocking back, the proving…) so I’ve adapted
this straightforward cake topped with plums which are available anywhere. Now is the perfect time to make this cake – plums are in abundance everywhere and they are at their sweetest. For some extra fun I’ve topped the whole thing with crumble – I simply love the extra sweet crunch that provides such a contrasting texture to the moist cake underneath. Serve with lightly whipped cream, creme fraiche or mascarpone. Go to heaven.
Secrets to success:
- Ingredients for the cake batter should be room temperature. Otherwise, beating the butter and sugar together will mean that 1) sugar goes everywhere when you start combining them 2) you’ll spend ages beating before they go light and fluffy. Also, when everything is room temperature the cake will be lighter and fluffier. It takes time to cream butter and sugar together too – do be patient
- Don’t be tempted to warm the butter in the microwave because it will just end up greasy
- Batter should have a ‘dropping consistency’. Which means that if you lift the batter with a wooden spoon or spatula, it should reluctantly drop off
- When you bake cakes with fresh fruit, a lot of moisture will be transferred from the fruit to the cake. When you test whether the cake is done, the skewer can then often not be clean due to the fruit juice. Check the cake is baked if it 1) smells baked and starts to come off the sides of the tin 2) its set in the middle when you press down gently (beware of the hot plum juice…)
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- 250 g light brown caster sugar
- 3 eggs at room temperature
- 210 g plain flour
- 1.5 tsp baking powder
- pinch largeof salt
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 12 plums
- tablespoons Potentially 1-2of milk
- For the Crumble Topping
- 80 g plain flour
- pinch of salt
- 55 g cold unsalted butter cubed
- 55 g granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 30 g sliced almonds
Ingredients
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