plums, more plums and a cake

About a week and a half ago, I was given a huge bag of plums by a coworker. A huge bag.

They were delicious but I knew D couldn't eat his way through them before they went soft and mushy. So, that night, after T was in bed, I sat outside in the waning light and quartered and stoned a pile of fruit.

 And now I have bags and bags of plums in my freezer to bring us summer in the fall and winter.

But I had a couple of cups of quartered plums left that wouldn't fit in the freezer (a situation that needs to be remedied as I soon (fingers crossed) have many more goodies to fit into the freezer for the winter), so I made a cake. I came across a plum skillet cake recipe in Martha Stewart Living Magazine and it looked delicious but only used 2 plums but it gave me the inspiration to make a plum buttermilk cake based on this recipe.

Plum Buttermilk Cake - based on strawberry rhubarb buttermilk pudding cake from sassy radish

3 c. quartered plums
1/3 c sugar
1 c. flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 c buttermilk (I used 1% milk plus 1 1/2 tsp vinegar)
1 stick (8 tbsp) butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Place ~ 1 cup of the plums in the bottom of a buttered, 7x11 glass dish.

Make the cake batter - whisk flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. In a separate bowl whisk egg, buttermilk, butter and vanilla together. Fold in the flour mixture until just mixed. Pour over the plums. Spread the batter as evenly as possible in the dish. Press the remaining plums into the batter. In a small bowl, mix the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle this mix over the cake.

Bake at 400 deg F for 25-30 minutes until a tester comes out clean.

 D loved this cake - he ate it like a sandwich at the beach - saran wrapped cake in one hand, book in the other.