Plum Upside Down Cake

  • Prep time:

  • Cook time:

  • Total time:

  • Portion/Yield:

    Serves 12

  • Difficulty:

    Easy

Late summer early autumn and plums are starting to make it’s appearance on the market. There are plenty of plum varieties and the choice of plum is entirely up to you. Early  in the season the fruits are small like these opal plums that I have used for this plum upside down cake. I think they are perfect not too sweet, have tender skins and fairly dinky which means that you get more plum per bite. The Season moves on rapidly and you are not guaranteed to get the same variety next week. One of my favourites, the Victoria plum is ready to be harvested towards the end of August and the season lasts for about three weeks.

You can use any plum variety for this cake; as these plums were small I needed 11 in number for a 10 ” cake tin, I reckon for the larger fruits you will need no more than 6 or 7. I have also used dark muscovado sugar for the cake batter which keeps the cake moist.

This cake can be served slightly warmed with honey creme fraiche as a dessert, or for afternoon tea.photo of Plum Upside Down Cake

Ingredients & Method

For preparing the fruit

  • 80g unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 80g soft light brown sugar
  • 11 small plums or 6 large plum

For the cake batter

  • 250g soft unsalted butter
  • 250g dark muscavado sugar
  • 4 whole medium free range eggs
  • 200g plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 80g ground almonds
  • Zest of one lemon
  • pinch of salt

First prepare the cake tin, spread the soft butter in the base of a 10″ tin. Sprinkle the sugar over the butter. Wash the plums, cut them in half and remove the stones. Arrange the plums cut side down onto the sugar and butter layer. I pack them as tight as I can, do not worry too much about leaving gaps.photo of Plum Upside Down Cake

Set the prepared cake tin aside whilst preparing the cake batter.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

For the cake batter cream the soft butter and muscavado sugar until fluffy and light in colour. Add the eggs one at a time and cream well after each addition. Add the lemon zest, salt, flour, ground almonds and baking powder. Fold the dry ingredients into the cake batter, do not over mix.

Spread the cake batter over the plums in the prepared cake tin.

Bake for 45 – 50 minutes, test if the cake is done by inserting a metal skewer. If the skewer comes out clean the cake is done.

Let the cake cool down for 5 minutes before gently turning the cake out onto a cooling rack.