Plum and cinnamon cake

First of all an apology for not posting anything last week, we were broad-blind with no Internet for five days.  Apparently BT had made changes in the green footway box and not synched our broadband access with it.  Thank goodness for 3g which kept me in touch with my email but blogging on an iPhone is a bit hard core for me. 

Anyway today back in the kitchen and this week's delight is a plum and cinnamon cake.  I was intending to make this with tinned plums because they seem to have so much more flavour than the mass market fresh ones but Tesco don't even have a space on the shelf for them any more.  Fortunately they had some ripe ones that were actually soft instead of being like tennis balls and reduced to clear so I used those.  They didn't have black beans for the dish I'm cooking on Sunday either, do I have to shop elsewhere now?

 

PLUM AND CINNAMON CAKE

 

 

• 200g (7oz) ground almonds
• 6 good sized plums (about 500g/18oz)
• 200g (7oz) butter at room temperature
• 200g (7oz) golden caster sugar
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 200g (7oz) self raising flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tbsp. Demerara sugar

 

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4

Line the base of a 23cm (9in) loose bottomed cake tin with baking paper

Roughly chop half the plums and halve the rest

Cream the butter and sugar to that mousse like consistency

Beat in the eggs one at a time, don't worry too much if the mixture curdles, just add a little flour

Fold in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon

Stir in the ground almonds and finally add the chopped plums

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and top with the halved plums skin side up

Sprinkle over the Demerara sugar and bake for 40-45 minutes until golden and firm

Leave to cool in the tin for at least 15 minutes before removing

 

NOTE:  My oven which is a little unreliable took a lot longer than 45 minutes to cook this.  I ended up turning it down a little and putting some foil over the top to get the middle to cook.  Watch out that the centre hasn't just crusted leaving the middle undone.  A good prod with a skewer should help you make your mind up!  The plums cooked beautifully and were tender and moist.