Plum in Love Spiced Cake

After seeing this fantastic Plum Tart recipe at Sugarlaws, I decided I needed to make something with plums. Plums bake beautifully, when they're at high temperatures the heat causes the purple skin to bleed into the yellow flesh and creates this gorgeous magenta to yellow color-blend. Not only that, but plums have a unique taste that is sweet and tart at the same time, kind of like Granny Smith Apples. I decided to make an old-timey English style dessert, the kind that might accompany an afternoon tea service. The cake also has a great blend of spices, which give it an autumn-esque flavor (I had recently purchased some ground cloves on sale and was looking for an opportunity to use them, so spice cake it was!) It came out wonderfully, as is evidenced by the fact that when I brought the cake over to my friend Alana's house me, Alana and her mom Melanie managed to eat half the plum cake in about 20 minutes. I want to go out and buy some more plums to make more cake just thinking about it.....I'm pretty positive you'll like it as much as we did.

Ingredients:

1 lb Fresh Plums

1 and 1/2 Cups Whole Wheat Flour

1 Cup Sugar

1 Cup Olive Oil

3 Eggs

2 Tablespoons Powdered Sugar (optional)

2 Teaspoons Cinnamon

1 and 1/2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1/2 Teaspoon Almond Extract

1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg

1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cloves

1/2 Teaspoon Allspice

1/2 Teaspoon Ground Ginger

1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder

1/4 Teaspoon Salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease an 8-inch cake pan and set it aside. Cut the plums in half, remove the pits, and place them in a single layer, cut-side-up, on the bottom cake pan, as can be seen in the photo above.

In a large bowl, blend together all of the dry ingredients, except the powdered sugar. Add the oil and continue mixing until the dry ingredients are evenly moistened. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Lastly, add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix until thoroughly combined. You should now have a smooth, and fairly thick, cake batter.

Pour the cake batter over the plums in the cake pan. Place the pan in the oven and bake for about 50 minutes to an hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool for 15 minutes before flipping it over and inverting it onto a plate or cake stand. Allow the cake to cool completely, and then garnish it by sprinkling the 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar over the cake.