Plum and almond cake/pudding/pie
I had a glut of windfall plums, from a kind colleague who knew that my kids like plums and that I like to cook. Some were good enough to go straight in the fruit bowl. The very bruised ones I stewed in the usual fashion with demerara sugar. These were not very good - perfectly edible but tasting more of sugar and a generic 'jam' kind of flavour than of plums in particular. Others I halved and baked in the oven with the remains of a bottle of white wine and quite a lot of honey (there was too much juice, because there was quite a lot of wine left, so I poured this off and reduced it in a saucepan, before pouring it back over the cooked plums). These have yet to be eaten, but initial finger-dipping is encouraging. I plan to eat them with custard tomorrow because they are on the tart side, even for people who like their fruit pretty tart.
But the following made-up-as-I-was-going-along recipe is a triumph:
[all quantities extremely approximate, as LB ate vast quantities as he was mixing it]
6oz butter (melted in the microwave, for ease of mixing)
5oz vanilla'd caster sugar
5oz self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
4oz ground almonds
4 eggs
8-10 plums, cut up (with scissors is easy) into chunks, about an 1/8th of a plum for each chunk
Flaked almonds.
Put the oven on to about Gas 4 (maybe 3? My oven cooks a bit cool). Mix all the ingredients, in the order listed, except the flaked almonds. Grease a fairly large shallow oven dish (not as big as a lasagne dish but that kind of proportions) and pour the batter in. Sprinkle the flaked almonds generously over the top. Bake for about an hour. Don't rely on a skewer to tell if it's cooked, as you may hit plums, which are deceptive. Use a table knife to have a good poke around.
The result is a bit like the inside of Bakewell Tart, but tastier. The sweet almond stuff contrasts beautifully with the tart plums. It's a little lacking in structural integrity to qualify for the name 'cake' but it is possible to eat it with your fingers like cake (and even while riding a scooter one-handed). LB insists that it is 'plum pie' but it's not really.
But the following made-up-as-I-was-going-along recipe is a triumph:
[all quantities extremely approximate, as LB ate vast quantities as he was mixing it]
6oz butter (melted in the microwave, for ease of mixing)
5oz vanilla'd caster sugar
5oz self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
4oz ground almonds
4 eggs
8-10 plums, cut up (with scissors is easy) into chunks, about an 1/8th of a plum for each chunk
Flaked almonds.
Put the oven on to about Gas 4 (maybe 3? My oven cooks a bit cool). Mix all the ingredients, in the order listed, except the flaked almonds. Grease a fairly large shallow oven dish (not as big as a lasagne dish but that kind of proportions) and pour the batter in. Sprinkle the flaked almonds generously over the top. Bake for about an hour. Don't rely on a skewer to tell if it's cooked, as you may hit plums, which are deceptive. Use a table knife to have a good poke around.
The result is a bit like the inside of Bakewell Tart, but tastier. The sweet almond stuff contrasts beautifully with the tart plums. It's a little lacking in structural integrity to qualify for the name 'cake' but it is possible to eat it with your fingers like cake (and even while riding a scooter one-handed). LB insists that it is 'plum pie' but it's not really.