Rebecca’s Recipe of the Week: Grandmother’s Plum Cake | Canalside Community Food

My Austrian grandmother was a rather difficult person, but an excellent cook. Here is her recipe for plum cake. It is easy and very tasty, and you can use other fruits in place of the plums. My friend Lizzie has invented a delicious variation that uses fresh pears and ground almonds (add half a cup along with the flour). This makes a small cake but the recipe can easily be doubled.

Pflaumkuchen (Plum Cake)

This recipe uses US cup measures, which equate to 8 fluid ounces.

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
zest of one lemon
3 egg yolks
1 cup flour
3 (unbeaten) egg whites
as many plums as you like, cut in half. You can also use other fruit in place of the plums.
icing sugar, for dusting on top

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 190C.
Grease and flour a 20cm cake pan.
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Stir in the lemon zest, egg yolks and flour.
Add the unbeaten egg whites and spoon the mixture into the cake pan.
Place the halved plums on top, cut side up. ‘Do not push in’, says the handwritten recipe from my grandmother. You can place them close together or far apart, as you prefer.
Bake at 190C for 30 minutes, and then lower the temperature to 180C and bake for an additional 15 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.
Dust with icing sugar when it is cool.