Plumfoolery - with cake

 

I've not done much baking of late - moving house has taken up most of my time and meant that I've just so little energy for anything else much at all. The weather this weekend has meant that I've been forced to come to a bit of a standstill and you know what? I've really enjoyed the slower pace. That said, I've achieved next to nothing save for some washing so normal service will need to be resumed this week. Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Plumfoolery indeed. Given the fact that I have 2 trees worth of apples secreted about the house at the moment it is ridiculous to have spent yesterday afternoon baking a plum cake. But I did. So there. M's mum inspired this - she looked after me this week while I was working away and fed me with a similar cake to this that she had made for a meeting. She showed me the receip which did not lodge itself anywhere useful in my mind (unlike lipstick names and shoes) so instead I had a bash at recreating it.

I started off with a sponge cake - and added the plums with a hope that they'd cook down into some semblance of jammy-ness. I added the cinammon sugar (stolen from the topping on M's favourite blondies) to spice it up and give the finished article a whisper of autumn.

4oz unsalted butter
4oz caster sugar
4oz self raising flour (remove 2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons of custard powder
1 tsp vanilla paste
2 eggs
10 plums, halved and stoned
2 tablespoons caster sugar, mixed with
1 tsp cinammon

Preheat the oven to 150 degrees
Cream your butter and sugar together until light and fluffy
Add each egg and beat again with a spoonful of the flour/ custard powder mix
Add the vanilla paste and beat again
Fold in the flour/ custard powder mix
Pour and scrape into a buttered 20 inch(ish) loose bottomed cake tin
Halve the plums and place in the cake batter (I tried to do concentric circles) push down gently so that the plum is neatly lined up with the  cake mix
Sprinkle the cinammon sugar over and bake for 40 minutes

Enjoy warm as a pudding with cream or custard, or cold with a cup of tea.