So, I love this torte. Simple and delicious and it lets the plums shine. I suppose it is not surprising that I love it, there is a reason it was published for decades in the New York Times each year. In fact, I feel a bit late to the plum torte party. But, now I have our fresh, organic plums in my life. I haven’t tried freezing the torte yet, but Marian Burros talks about making dozens at a time (my kind of approach!), and I do plan to freeze some soon! It seems this is a good year for it.
Ingredients
12 plums (or a few more if small), halved & pitted (We used 14 in a 10 inch pan)
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar plus 1 Tablespoon
2 eggs
1 cup flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamom (optional)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350. Cut plums in half and remove pits. Sift together flour, baking powder & salt.
Cream softened butter and sugar, add eggs and keep mixing. Add flour and beat well.
Spoon batter into a springform pan (8 or 9 inches is best, but 10 will work). Place plums on batter skin side up.
Mix 1 Tablespoon sugar with spices and sprinkle over top of plums. (Some versions of the recipes also put lemon juice on at this stage. We skipped it and certainly didn’t miss it.)
Bake for 45-60 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. 50 minutes was perfect on convection for the 10 inch pan. Cool and then eat or freeze.
Notes:
Recipe suggests, “To serve a torte that was frozen, defrost and reheat it briefly at 300 degrees.”
The folks at Smitten Kitchen note about this recipe, ” Two magical things happen… the first is that the cake rises up around the plums and buckles them in, leaving the cake riddled with deep pockets of jammy plum puddles that impart a sweet-sour complexity to an otherwise simple butter cake base. The second magical thing that will happen, if you take my advice, is to always start eating this cake on the second day. Although it will be hard to resist (deep pockets of plum puddles and all that, believe me, I know), what’s true of most cakes with fresh fruit — that in the oven, the fruit softens and bakes, but upon resting, the sweet juices seep out and become one with the cake around it, making it so incredibly moist, decadent and almost custard-like around the fruit pebbles that you won’t regret waiting — is triply true here, when there’s just so much fruit for so little cake.”
We waited and it was lovely, as promised. But I also look forward to trying it fresh out of the oven and out of the freezer!