Pluscious Plum Torte

This has to be one of the easiest and most delicious cakes you can make in the early fall.  The famous NY Times Plum Torte was printed year after year from about 1983 until the late '80's.  Over the years, I've personalized it, but it's pretty "true to your school".  Pastry is notoriously an exacting art, but this recipe allows for you to bake the cake in an 8", 9" or 10" spring form, each producing a similar, but subtle difference in fruit to cake equation.  You can play around with cinnamon and lemon juice too.  (Borderline pastry-hedonism.) And there's an apple/cranberry variation too.  


Simply put, it's pluscious.

Plum Torte

(and Apple-Cranberry Torte Variation)

Adapted from the 1989 NY Times recipe by Blue Heron Kitchen

Make this in the early fall when prune plums come into the market.  The plums should sink to the bottom.  This torte (theoretically) serves 8.

Ingredients:

½ c. unsalted butter, room temperature (83% European style, preferably)

¾ c. sugar

1 c. unbleached flour

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

2 eggs, size large, at room temperature

½ tsp. pure vanilla extract

24 halves pitted purple plums (“prune plums” that come into season in the fall)

Sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon and coarse sugar for topping

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 350º F.

Butter an 8”, 9” or 10” springform pan, depending on how cake-like or plum-ish you prefer your torte (or what size pan you have on hand).

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream the sugar and butter in the bowl of a Kitchen Aid or another electric mixer.  Add eggs and beat until incorporated.  Add vanilla extract. 

Add flour mixture to the creamed mixture and mix until just incorporated.  Finish incorporating wet and dry ingredients with a spatula.

Spoon batter into prepared pan and top with halved plums, skin side UP, on top of the batter.

 

Sprinkle with cinnamon and lemon juice (depending on how sweet the plums are) and on how much you like cinnamon. Sprinkle about a teaspoon of coarse sugar (you can use granulated if you don’t have decorating or coarse sugar on hand) over the batter.

Bake for about 45 minutes to an hour, until cake is ‘done’ (when the cake springs bake to the touch and/or a tester come out clean).

Cool and serve warm, plain, or with whipped cream.

This freezes very well.  But, be sure to cool it completely and then wrap it well in plastic and then foil before freezing. When serving a torte that has been frozen, warm it in the oven (remember to take the plastic wrap off!) at 325º for a few minutes.

VARIATION:  To make an apple-cranberry torte, follow directions for plum torote, but peel, seed, quarter and slice two or three large baking apples.  Arrange ½ cup of raw cranberries over the batter and top with the apple slices.  Sprinkle generously with cinnamon; squeeze ½ to 1 tablespoon of lemon juice over the apples.  Sprinkle generously with sugar.