Dimply Plum Cake

Dimply Plum cake was there in my “must bake” list since long. But I had to wait for summer fruits to arrive to go ahead with it. Last week when we spotted a villager selling stone fruits from his orchard in the hills, I was thrilled. There were so many cakes and jams that had to be made with stone fruits. Plum has a short shelf life especially when you buy them ripe, so first came Plum Jam. Some ripe red plums were purposely reserved for this pretty cake.

This is a wonderful cake. Orange zest lends a lovely flavour to it. The cake becomes moist and very flavourful when had the next day. However the plums need to be really sweet to be used in this recipe. This cake can also be made with apricots or cherries.

Here goes the recipe-

Dimply Plum Cake

Adapted from  Smitten kitchen

Ingredients

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

¾ cup brown sugar

5 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup canola oil (any neutral oil will do)

2 eggs

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon powder

1 ½ teaspoons vanilla essence

¼ teaspoon salt

Zest of an orange

8 ripe sweet plums halved and pitted

Method

Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Grease and line an 8 inch square cake tin. Dust the sides with flour, tap out the excess flour.

Whisk all purpose flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together.

Cream butter and sugar till smooth and fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add oil, vanilla essence and zest. Mix well.

Add dry ingredients. Mix till the dry ingredients are just incorporated.

Empty the batter into the cake tin and smoothen the top.

Arrange the plums cut side up in the batter. Four pieces sit comfortably in a line in the batter.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes till the top turns brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool the cake for 15 minutes in the pan. Run a knife around the sides and remove from the cake tin.

Transfer to the rack and cool right side up.

Once cool, dust with powdered sugar.