This is the best and the easiest plum cake, perfect for your holiday. It has a crumble topping and plums that can be swapped for any other soft fruit. With the plum variant, a good replacement would be a little melted apricot/plum jam brushed over the baked cake for a glaze. Make the crumble topping by placing the flour, cinnamon, sugar and a pinch of salt in a small bowl. Rub in the cold diced butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs, then stir in the crushed Amaretti biscuits.
To make the crumble, stir together the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon and butter and blend it with a fork or your fingers until the mixture is well-combined and crumbly. Set aside.
To make the cake, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. In a medium bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until it’s light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Add half the flour mixture and stir by hand just until it’s combined. Stir in the sour cream, then the remaining flour mixture, stirring until it’s just blended.
Spread the batter into the prepared pan. Spread the apples, plums, peaches or berries on top and sprinkle with the crumble mixture. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the cake is golden and springy to the touch. Springiness may be difficult to test with the fruit in the way – you could also test it by sticking a toothpick or bamboo skewer into the cake. If it comes out with moist, not gooey, crumbs sticking to it, it’s done.
Ingredients;
- 175g butter, at room temperature
- 175g golden caster sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 225g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 100g ground almonds
- 85g soured cream
- 5-6 ripe plums, halved and stoned
For the crumble;
- 50g ground almonds
- 50g plain flour
- 50g golden caster sugar
- 50g butter, chopped into pieces
- soured cream or yoghurt, to serve
Instructions;
- Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Grease and line a 22cm deep, round cake tin (preferably with a loose bottom) with baking parchment.
- First, make the topping: Put all the crumble ingredients in a bowl and rub together until crumbly.
- For the cake, put the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, vanilla, ground almonds and sour cream in a big bowl.
- Beat with an electric whisk until smooth, then tip into the tin and level the top. Arrange the plums, cut-side up, over the mix, then scatter over the crumble.
- Bake for 50 mins-1 hr on a middle shelf until a skewer poked into the cake mixture comes out clean.
- Cool in the tin for 20 mins, then finish cooling on a wire rack. Serve plain or with soured cream or yoghurt.
- Keeps for 3-4 days in an airtight cake tin.
