Polish Plum Cake
Where I used to work, there was a bachelor engineer who enjoyed cooking. He liked to organize pot luck lunches, chili cook-offs, things like that. He got a Mexican pot luck going once, and everyone had so much fun finding and trying authentic mexican cuisine, we decided to try doing the same with other types of dishes. Eventually, we had a polish lunch. One of the guys found a recipe for plum cake (I think it may have been one of his first forays in the kitchen – he was a high school co-op), so he made that. The concept was good. The recipe he used was not. It was a heavy, dense cake and the plums sat on the top, sort of drying out there.
Since I was intrigued by concept, I went looking myself. That was when I first saw Ania, from InAniaskitchen, on youtube.com. She makes authentic polish dishes and when I saw her make this cake I knew I had to try it. Several weeks (or maybe months) later, I actually remembered to buy plums. While I was already at the supermarket! Not sure what happened there…but it was a red letter day!
I am hooked. And this is a pretty light dessert…very little added sugar, no added fat. Just a light fluffy cake atop tangy, juicy plums. I could eat this daily. Sort of like a right-side-up upside-down cake….
Make sure you whip the eggs all the way, and it does take about 5 minutes! The second time I made this, I got distracted and didn’t whip the eggs enough….not good. A flat, heavy cake with the consistency of shoe rubber. Not that it’s difficult, just make sure you do this and you will be impressed.
- 5 large eggs
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- ¾ cup white flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- About 1 pound plums, I typically use red and have also used pluots (very good)
- Wash the plums, cut them in to chunks, removing the pit. I typically cut the plum into eight wedges, then cut each wedge in half.
- Beat the eggs and sugar with a mixer on medium high/high speed for about 5 minutes, until pale yellow and fluffy.
- Add vanilla extract and mix a little bit more
- Mix flour, baking powder and cinnamon together and add to the egg mixture. Mix just a minute more, just until flour is well incorporated
- Line an 8 or 9 inch square or round baking pan with enough parchment paper over the sides to be able to lift the completed cake out of the pan. Pour batter into pan, then drop the chunks of plum into the batter, scattering as evenly as possible all over the pan.
- Bake in 350 degrees F for about 45 minutes
- Let it cool for about 15 minutes. Using the parchment paper as handles, lift the cake quickly fromthe pan onto your serving plate. Make sure to go around the edges to release any parchment paper that may be stuck to the sides of the cake.
- Grasp the edge of the parchment and lay the flat side of a large knife against the cake to keep it from moving. Brace the knife firmly against the cake and pull the parchement paper out from under the cake. Sprinkle with top of the cake with powdered sugar and serve.