Baking with Dorie: Dimply Plum Cake
We bakers must be a lot alike. Last week, when plums were inching berries off farm stand tables, I got messages from people around the country who were making plum cakes, custards, and tarts. And that was just what I was doing. I made a plum clafouti, (kind of like a custard, kind of like a cake), individual plum tartlets (puff pastry rounds brushed with jam, topped with plums, sprinkled with sugar, dotted with butter, baked, and served warm with ice cream), and this Dimply Plum Cake, a favorite.
The base of this treat is a brown sugar cake flavored with cardamom and orange zest, a combination I really like with plums. The cake itself is a simple beat-the-butter-with-the-sugar affair, in other words, a snap in the technique department; the baked fruit is really what makes it special. I love the way the way the plum juices seep into the batter and add their own tangy sweetness to the mix. (Of course, you can mix things up and make this cake with other fruits and other spices; see "Playing Around," below.)
