PLUM AND ALMOND CAKE

I spotted a recipe in a lovey blog called "Katie Cakes" for a raspberry and almond cake and offered to take it as a dessert when invited out to lunch at a friend's house.  The host was delighted but then I discovered that I didn’t have the frozen raspberries in the freezer that I could have sworn were there!  Drat!

So I used some of my frozen cinnamon roasted plums instead!  Almond goes well with plums so I omitted the vanilla and replaced it with almond extract.

The mixture was fairly stiff which meant the fruit didn't sink to the bottom of the cake and stayed exactly where I wanted it - as a layer in the middle.  It was a huge cake and rose almost to the top of the tin.  

It was absolutely delicious and the kind of cake where a small slice was definitely enough.  (I think next time I might try scaling down the ingredients or using a larger tin.)

I forgot to dust it with icing sugar until I was taking pictures of the leftovers at home.  That definitely made it look more glamorous - not that it needed it.  I kept the remaining cake in the fridge and it still tasted fresh several days later when I took it round to another friend's house for coffee.  Definitely a keeper and you can see the recipe here.

Ingredients

250g each of:

    unsalted butter, softened (I used baking spread)

    caster sugar

    self raising flour

    ground almonds

2 large eggs (mine were very small so I used 3)

1 tsp almond extract

250g cooked plums, stoned and halved (see recipe here)

2 tblsp flaked almonds

Method

Preheat the oven to 185°C / 175° fan.  Grease and line the base of a 20cm round springform cake tin.

Put the butter, sugar, flour, almonds, eggs and extract into a large bowl and beat well with a hand held electric whisk until well blended (or use a stand mixer).

Spoon roughly half of the mixture into the prepared tin and arrange the cooked plums over the top.

Carefully spoon the remaining mixture over the plums and spread out evenly.  Scatter the flaked almonds over the top.

Bake for 55-65 minutes until done, covering loosely with foil about half way through to prevent the cake from browning too much.

Cool in the tin.  Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Cuts into 10 generous slices.