Almond Maple Plum Cake

This cake is moist on the inside with hint of vanilla, top of the cake is slightly crunchy flavoured with soft tarty plums. The sponge cake is shy of sweet which allow the maple saturated fruit to shine. Plum is sold in abundance at this time of the year, it is delicious both raw and cooked. In its raw form, the firm but juicy flesh is pleasantly sweet, it carries a floral note and sweet like honey. Its smell mirrors its wonderful taste and lingers on your fingers long after you held one. When cooked, sweetness turns into a nice tarty taste. It is almost unbearable to not take the advantage to include plum in your everyday menu, some days I wake up craving for a juicy plum with yogurt and homemade granola, or other days, I scatter them on salad and then topped with toasted nuts, or stew them quickly in vanilla syrup and serve warm with ice cream for dessert. But bake plum in cake is definitely one of my favorite ways to enjoy these late summer jewels.

This recipe is inspired by the Green Kitchen Stories’s rhubarb upside down cake. I adapted the recipe for the cake base and have altered a few things. After two attempts, I would say I am very happy with the result. Nothing better than having a piece of cake that tastes like summer with a cup of tea while bathing in the cosy late afternoon sun.

Ingredients:

Served 8-10

Inspired by Green Kitchen Stories’s rhubarb upside-down cake

• 100g butter (plus more for greasing)
• 3 eggs, separated plus 1 egg white
• 100g caster sugar, separated (50/50)
• 200g ground almond
• 75g buckwheat flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla powder (or extract or paste)
• 250ml buttermilk quark (or regular quark)
• 500g (about 5-6 depends on the size) plum, halved, stoned and sliced
• 2-3 tablespoons of maple syrup
• icing sugar to serve

Preheat the oven at 180 degree celsius. Line a rectanglur brownie tin (20x23cm) or 22cm springform cake tin, with parchment paper, greased with butter. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine ground almond, buckwheat flour, baking powder, salt and vanilla powder. Set aside.

In large bowl, cream the butter and half the sugar with an electric mixer until light and creamy. Add sugar in three intervals and continue to beat until light and fluffy. Add egg yolk and beat until everything is well combine. Stir in the quark and then the flour mixture.

Beat the egg white with 3 additions of the remaining sugar until soft peaks formed. Fold in the egg white into the cake mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepared tray and lay the plum slices on top. Spoon over the maple syrup on the plums. Bake in the preheat oven for 60 -70 minutes (test with a wooden skewer and it comes out clean when done), the top of the cake should be beautifully brown and the plums are soft but crispy on the edges.

Remove from the oven and leave the cake in the tin for a couple of minutes, then transfer the cake with the parchment paper on a cooling rack and allow it to cool completely.

Cut into small rectangles and sprinkle with icing sugar when served. The left over cake should be stored in the fridge.