Nutty, seedy...what is there not to love >:)
Always wanted to try baking with plums because the colour after it bakes looks so good. Bloody plums which looks so glossy and juicy. I'm superficial, like that. I judge a cake by its cover. But, my siblings are always hesitant when it comes to plums because they cannot comprehend the mild taste of plums in cake...I suppose? So I've been up to my manipulative self, baked them some plums with honey for brunch before I formally introduced the plum cake later in the afternoon. And it works! Or maybe it's just because the cake is so good on its own.
To be honest, I forgot to add in poppy seeds into the initial batter. I only remembered after I poured the batter into the tin. So I sloppily added the seeds into the tin and roughly mixed the batter up. You can see the uneven distribution of the poppy seeds in my batter. Oops. We all make mistakes, don't we?
Anyway here goes, a brown butter plum cake which has almost no sugar in it. You can choose to not toss the plums in brown sugar, which I didn't because I like tartness in my cakes. So you could say this is a healthier cake? HAHAHA let's just blatantly ignore the butter in the cake which gives it the buttery goodness.
BROWN BUTTER PLUM, ALMOND AND POPPY SEED CAKE
Serves 8-10 pax.
Bake time: 50 minutes
Prep time: 1hr 30 mins
Ingredients
6 small plums
2 tbspn brown sugar (optional)
140g butter, softened (divided into 30g and 110g)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup almond meal
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tbspn poppy seeds
zest of 1 lemon
3 eggs
1/2 cup honey
1 cup plain greek yogurt
1/3 cup milk
Preheat oven to 170 deg cel. Prepare a 8" pan.
Remove pit from the plums, slice plums thickly.
(Optional) Toss plums in brown sugar.
Heat 30g butter in a small pan and cook till brown, remove from heat and let it cool slightly.
Toss plums into the butter and then pour all into a 8" inch pan, rearrange the plums such that it covers the base of the tin.
In a separate medium bowl, mix flour, almond meal, baking powder, vanilla essence, poppy seeds and lemon zest and salt together.
With a stand mixer, on medium speed, cream butter in a bowl till smooth. Then add honey in batches and continue to mix till smooth.
Add eggs into the butter mixture, one at a time; ensuring that mixture is smooth before each addition of the egg.
Slowly add in greek yogurt and milk, beat until creamy and smooth.
Then, add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
Pour the batter over the plums and bake for about 50 minutes.
If it gets too brown, cover the tin with aluminium foil towards the end of the baking cycle.
Insert a cake tester and once it comes out clean, the cake is done. Let cool for 5 minutes before inverting it onto a tray.
Serve warm and with ice cream if you like (;
