Plum delicious: Easy cake recipe makes good use of fall harvest

This plum cake isn’t the prettiest.

But it’s quite possibly the perfect way to use the freezer full of halved purple Italian prune plums that I gleaned from a friend’s yard in early September.

I picked so many – my friend encouraged me to, and I happily obliged – that I had to freeze them. I hardly made a dent in her fall harvest, but I went home with a big bag brimming with jewel-toned beauties. This was among the first recipes that came up with I Googled “plum cake.”

It looked easy so I went for it – with just a couple of modifications. I used coconut sugar and orange juice and zest because that’s what I had on hand. But I’m looking forward to making this cake again soon – it pairs well with coffee or tea – with regular white sugar and lemon juice and zest, as the recipe calls for.

The coconut sugar made the cake browner than the photos I found online. A note on the recipe said the 1 tablespoon of cinnamon was likely a typo in “The Essential New York Times Cookbook.” It was probably supposed to be 1 teaspoon. But I made the cake with the larger amount and found it to be just fine. In fact, I wouldn’t change that next time I make it. I might, however, add more plums.

The batter is thick. And there doesn’t seem to be much of it. Don’t let this freak you out. As it bakes, the cake rises up around the fruit, little gems in “an otherwise simple butter cake base,” Deb Perelman writes on her blog, Smitten Kitchen.

She advises consuming the cake on its second day because “upon resting, the sweet juices seep out and become one with the cake around it.”

Good luck with that.

Marian Burros’ Famous Purple Plum Torte

From “Elegant But Easy” and “The Essential New York Times Cookbook” via Smitten Kitchen at https://smittenkitchen.com/2013/10/purple-plum-torte/

This recipe was first published in the New York Times in 1983 by Marian Burros. It had been given to her by Lois Levine, her co-author on “Elegant But Easy” and was published every year during plum season between then and 1995.

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder (the aluminum-free kind, if you can find it)

Large pinch of salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar plus 1 to 2 tablespoons (depending on sweetness of plums), divided

2 large eggs

12 smallish purple Italian prune plums, halved and pitted

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon or tablespoon ground cinnamon, depending on preference

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Sift or whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. In a larger bowl, cream butter and 1 cup sugar together with an electric mixer until fluffy and light in color. Add the eggs, one at a time and scraping down the bowl, then the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.

Spoon batter into an ungreased 9-inch springform pan and smooth the top. Arrange the plums, skin side up, all over the batter, covering it. Sprinkle the top with lemon juice, then cinnamon, then remaining sugar, if using.

Bake until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted into a center part of the cake comes out free of batter, about 45 to 50 minutes. Cool on rack.

Note: If you can stand it, and Deb Perelman highly recommends trying, leave the cake covered at room temperature overnight, as it is better on the second day, when those plum juices further release into the cake around it.