chocolate plum cake

chocolate plum cake

• 17 Apr 2017

Each month my receptionist brings me a few back issues of the Australian Women's Weekly because she knows I like doing their puzzles. There are always a stack of recipes to leaf through and a picture of a spiced plum cake in a recent issue, piqued my interest.





Although it still feels like summer, we're officially in autumn and the stone fruit won't be in the fruit shops for much longer. A few weeks back, I bought some plums and made the spiced plum cake. 




Something went awry. The cake turned out quite heavy and the finished cake, sweetened with brown sugar, wasn't sweet enough; the cocoa barely added any chocolate flavour and the spices were so mild they were barely noticeable. 



I do not like failure so I decided to make the cake again this time tweaking my own tried and true plum cake recipe. I swapped the lemon rind for vanilla, reduced the flour a little because I was adding cocoa and added cinnamon to the sugar topping and baked the cake in a larger tin. The changes worked a treat and the cake came out moist, delicious and chocolatey. 



This is a very moist cake so don't be alarmed if the plums sink to the bottom of the cake. It only makes the cake more luscious!




Here's the recipe for you. Please note for all my recipes, I use a 250 ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon. All eggs are 60 grams and my oven is a conventional oven not fan forced, so you may need to reduce your oven temperature by 20°C.

Chocolate plum cake 

Cake Ingredients
4-6 plums
1 tablespoon caster sugar
110 grams unsalted butter
½ cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
¾ cup plain flour
2 tbs dutch process cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
¼ cup milk

Topping
2 tbs raw sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

To serve
Icing sugar
Cream, optional

Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F, conventional. Grease and line the base and sides of a 20 cm springform tin with baking paper.

Cut the plums in half and remove the pits. Slice each plum in half again and sprinkle a tablespoon of caster sugar over the plums. Set  to one side.

To make the cake, cream the butter, sugar and vanilla together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and mix until combined well. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder together. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk to make a soft batter. You may not need to use all the milk.

Spoon the batter into the lined tin. Decoratively arrange the plum slices over the top of the cake, gently pressing the plums down into the batter. Combine the raw sugar with the cinnamon and sprinkle over the plums and the cake batter. Bake the cake for 50 minutes or until the cake tests 'cooked' when a skewer is inserted into the middle of the cake.



Cool the cake in the tin for about 15 minutes before turning out to cool on a wire rack. 



To serve, sprinkle with icing sugar and if you like, a good dollop of cream wouldn't go astray.

I hope you all enjoyed your Easter break.

See you all again soon.

Bye for now,

Jillian