One of the best plum cakes I ever made! Ground almonds give it texture, honey adds sweetness, and all is balanced by the sourness of the fresh plums. Stone fruit at its best.
Plums get all the credit for making the best looking rustic cakes ever, don't they? And tarts too, let's not forget the all-time favorite crumble plum tart.
End of the summer stone fruit always makes me rush into the kitchen for those last recipes with peaches and plums.
But plums, especially red ones (image below), can at times be too sour or mushy making them the perfect ingredient for lifting up a pie or cake. A great example is this almond plum cake, dense, moist, and full of flavor. I know perfect is a bit too much, but really, it tastes amazing, keeps well and is so pretty!.
Prepare the plums
I mention this gadget every time I use plums in a recipe. The best and easiest way to pit plums is with an apple corer. Yup, you heard right.
You can see in the image below, left, how the core comes off impeccably without much flesh attached. So the plum is pitted but not much harm is done to the fruit. Have you ever tried to make a cut and open the plum in half by holding each side with your hands and moving in opposite directions? Not pretty. Most of the times part of the plums get crushed.
And we need to cut nice wedges, so this way of doing it is by far the best! Click to buy an apple corer online.
Cutting the fruit
I like to cut wedges that would fit in a bite. That way it's easier to eat, even if it's with your hands at a picnic or summer gathering. So I cut each half plum in 3 or 4 pieces.
I like to make a circle (image above, right) and fill the center with extra wedges. The way the plums are arranged is irrelevant when it comes to flavor, but a pretty cake is always a good idea, it's more enticing.
Tips & tricks
- Plums: I love red plums, but any type you like will work. Use firm ones, not soft overripen ones as they don't cut well and don't hold their shape as well.
- Honey: this is an important part. Don't be tempted to add more honey. The cake will take ages to bake completely, if ever. Learn from my experience. Any type of honey works, but runny is always easier to mix.
- Pan size: it is very important to use the pan specified in the recipe because otherwise, it might not bake properly. You can use a slightly larger pan (the cake will be shorter) but never smaller.
- Keeping: the cake keeps for a few days well, at room t°. I find that refrigerating it dries it up too much for my taste. And it's not the ideal cake to freeze. You can of course, but I wouldn't recommend it highly. I like to eat it the day it is baked, two days at the most.
- Variations: this is a superb cake with other stone fruit - peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries.
Serving it
Make it in a square pan since this is the ultimate picnic/potluck summer cake.
The one you take over to your friend's house for a barbecue, or the one you share with friends at the beach. Square is always easier to cut, and eat.
I like to serve it as dessert also with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. If you slightly warm the cake before adding the ice cream... well, I can vouch for the oohs and aahs.
Other recipes you might like:
Plum Crumble Tart
Honey Stone Fruit with Cream
Plum Loaf Cake
Plum Hazelnut Upside-down Cake (gluten-free)
Blueberry Peach Upside-down Cake
Cherry Caipiroska
Cherry Almond Crumble
Let me know if you make this recipe! I’d love to hear what you think about it.
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Almond plum cake
- Prep Time: 20
- Cook Time: 40
- Total Time: 1 hour
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Cakes
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: International
Description
Let me tell you this is one of the best plum cakes ever. It has almonds, honey and that awesome balance between sweet and sour from the fresh plums.
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons (85g) butter
- ⅔ cup (135g) fine muscovado or dark brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons runny honey
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure almond extract
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup (95g) ground almonds, or almond flour
- ¾ cup (70g) superfine whole wheat flour
- 3-4 red plums (stoned and each half in fourths)
- Powdered sugar (to serve)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350ºF / 180ºC.
- Line or butter an 8-inch round with removable bottom or square cake pan lined with parchment paper.
- Melt butter in a large bowl.
- Add sugar and honey. Mix well with a hand beater.
- Add egg, extracts, salt and baking powder. Mix well until creamy.
- Add flours in 2 or 3 parts, mixing well, but not too much.
- Pour into the prepared pan and arrange plum pieces on top.
- Bake for about 30-40 minutes, until a tester comes almost dry (this is a very moist cake so it will not be completely dry).
- Let cool completely on wire rack.
- Sprinkle powdered sugar on top (not too much) and serve.
Notes
- Plums: I love red plums, but any type you like will work. Use firm ones, not soft overripen ones as they don't cut well and don't hold their shape as well.
- Honey: this is an important part. Don't be tempted to add more honey. The cake will take ages to bake completely, if ever. Learn from my experience. Any type of honey works, but runny is always easier to mix.
- Pan size: it is very important to use the pan specified in the recipe because otherwise, it might not bake properly. You can use a slightly larger pan (the cake will be shorter) but never smaller.
- Keeping: the cake keeps for a few days well, at room t°. I find that refrigerating it dries it up too much for my taste. And it's not the ideal cake to freeze. You can of course, but I wouldn't recommend it highly. I like to eat it the day it is baked, two days at the most.
- Variations: this is a superb cake with other stone fruit - peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: ⅛
- Calories: 276
- Sugar: 19.2 g
- Sodium: 87.2 mg
- Fat: 15.1 g
- Carbohydrates: 30.6 g
- Protein: 5.6 g
- Cholesterol: 46.1 mg
Keywords: plum cake, plum almond cake
Hi Natasha
My cake is a complete disaster,took 50 mins to cook and was very dark.
I'm a trained cook and was very disappointed. The plums sunk.
I was hesitant to make this because the method is unconventional (melting butter vs whipping it with sugar for instance). I panicked when I saw how little batter there was so I switched to a 7" pan and even with a smaller pan the cake barely rose and was more like a big pancake. The taste & texture were similar to other reviewers: fudgy and almond-y. I think this recipe has potential but I would play around with the method and ingredients to get it to be more "cake-like". Taste was good.
★★★
A keeper! Agreed with a previous comment of not being sure when it went into the oven, and even after it came out. But boy, the magic happened after it cooled down. Moist and chewy and full of complex flavors and textures from the honey, ground almonds, vanilla and plums and whole wheat flour. Tastes like it came from a very expensive bakery. The cake remained moist and tasted great even the next day.
So happy to hear this JL! And you explained it so well. Thanks for taking the time to do so. Have a great week!
I made this cake yesterday. I was a bit unsure when I put the dough in the oven since it looked quite thick in consistency, and not as much in quantity. The cake rose enough, and was yummy! The brown sugar, honey and almond flour bring out a lovely taste. Will definitely make it again.
★★★★★
Yes, completely agree that it is a dense cake, but with great flavors. Happy to hear it turned out well Dhruv! Have a great week.
how much butter is it in weight, hard to measure in tbsps. I find
thanks
It's 85g Aruna
I used Hazelnut meal instead, since that's what I had, and it was delicious except almost fudgy..didn't rise at all..took an hr ...so I tried it using baking soda instead since I read that many of the ingredients are acidic and needed to raise the ph....doubled in size and wasn't so dense...so my question is did you intend to write bs instead of bp?
★★★★
Hi Malcolm, the recipe uses baking powder, but maybe using baking soda is the best option. I like it dense, but will try your version and see how it goes. Thanks for the comment!
Hands down, the best plum cake ever! Almond flavor pairs so well with plums. The recipe is easy to follow and the results are scrumptious! Yum-yum!
★★★★★
So happy you liked it Nataliya!
This is sooooooo delicious!!! Just made double the recipe and gave one to my neighbors and kept one for my family. We just finished the whole thing in one sitting...we each had two big slices. Such a great recipe. Thank you!!
★★★★★
Thanks YOU for the comment Maia!