I wasn’t planning this recipe to be my first blog entry but out of the blue my friend Judith called one Sunday afternoon saying she had just come back from her granny’s with heaps of damson plums from the garden. If we wanted some? Of course we did! And I swear: only minutes before she called my husband told me he fancied that amazing plum cake my granny used to make. So I guess, this was meant to be recipe number one. And here we go:
INGREDIENTS
About 800g of damson plums – they are your standard plums in Germany, if there is such thing.
For the base:
200g regular flour
100g butter
60g sugar
1 egg
pinch of salt
For the crumble:
40g butter
40g sugar
80g flour
half a teaspoon of cinnamon
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Resting time for the base: 1h in the fridge
Baking time: 35 minutes at 200°C
METHOD
Put the flour – I use light spelt flour – into a big bowl and make a well in the middle. Put the sugar and the salt into the well, crack the egg on top and place the butter in lumps on the flour rim. Use a butter knife and cut through the whole thing criss cross from all directions. Once the mixture has started to become doughy, use your hands and quickly knead an even shortcrust pastry. The dough is not supposed to become warm and gooey because then it won’t stick properly. Form a ball, cover it with cling film or a kitchen towel if you have a plastic free household and let it rest in the fridge for an our.
In the meantime remove the cores from your washed damson plums. There is a certain way my granny used to prepare them: she cut the plums along their seam so you can open the fruit up like a book and take out the stone. You then incise the tops of the wings about half an inch each. This way you get slightly crispy, aromatic edges.
Pre-heat your oven to 200°C. Grease a round springform tin with a diameter 26cm and put in the shortcrust pastry. I usually roll it out a bit on a floured tabletop with my rolling pin and finish with my hands inside the tin. Forming a rim of half an inch helps to contain the juices. Then arrange the plums upright and snug on the base starting with the outer row moving into the centre.
Put all the crumble ingredients in a bowl and mix them quickly but thoroughly with both of your hands. I like crumble with big lumps because this way it will be crispy on the outside and still a bit soft on the inside.
Put it on the oven and bake for 35 minutes. After the baking let it rest until it is only very slightly warm because then the juices won’t be runny anymore and you can even flip the cake over onto a baking tray to get it out of the tin and back onto a plate.
My granny used to serve the cake still slightly warm with whipped cream. Vanilla ice cream is also an option of course. I love this cake for so many reasons. It just tastes divine while being a real quickie: so simple to make and even the baking time is much shorter than most of the cakes make.
Extra tricks
I usually put half the cinnamon into the crumble and the other half directly onto the damson plums. I think the cinnamon releases an extra dose of flavour when sizzling on a bed of sweet plum juice.
For the base I use white sugar with a small grain (not icing sugar though) because it creates a really smooth sensation in your mouth. For the crumble I use brown sugar to give it some extra crunch which is a lovely contrast to the juicy plums.
Instead of greasing the tin I often use a round baking paper. After the cake has cooled down you can simply push it onto a cake platter or a board.
