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This beautiful Plum Upside-Down Cake features plums in a delicious butterscotch sauce on top of a tender spiced cake. The cake recipe is easy to make and can be used to make a variety of upside-down cakes. Try this recipe with nectarines, peaches, pineapple, and even blueberries.
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This Plum Upside-Down Cake is a flavourful dessert with a cake base spiced with cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger. The cake is tender and moist, and the plums are baked in a mixture of butter and brown sugar and become caramelized, jammy and sweet. This is a cake that will certainly become a favourite in your household.
How to Make a Plum Upside-Down Cake
Though it does take a bit of work to slice the plums, the cake is easy to make and if you take the time to arrange the plum slices (slightly overlapping them) in concentric circles on top of the brown sugar and butter, the cake comes out looking beautiful.
Here are some tips for successful cake making:
- When slicing the plums try and get even slices.
- I like to melt the butter in the cake pan in the oven as it’s warming up. Once the butter is melted just add the brown sugar and spread it evenly over the bottom of the pan.
- When adding the cake batter over the plums, make sure to gently spread the batter so that you don’t disrupt the pattern of plums.
- Let cake cool in pan on cake rack for 10 to 15 minutes before running knife around the edges of the cake and inverting cake onto serving plate.
- Serve the cake warm or at room temperature. If placing leftovers in the refrigerator, let cake come to room temperature before serving.
This is a great recipe to use when you feel like being creative. There are many different varieties of plums, you can use your favourite for this recipe, just make sure the fruit is ripe but still firm. And if you can’t find plums, try making this cake with fresh peaches, nectarines or pineapple. You can easily switch the fruit portion to what’s in season and to suit your tastes. Serve this cake warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Enjoy!
Ingredients
Topping (Plum Layer)
- 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 1/3 cup brown sugar packed
- 4-5 fresh plums you'll need enough plums to cover the bottom of an 8 inch pan, pitted and thinly sliced.
Cake
- 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1/3 cup light brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup sour cream at room temperature, I used full-fat
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom optional
- 1/4 tsp. ground ginger optional
- 1/4 tsp. sea salt
Instructions
- Place a rack in the middle of the oven and heat oven to 325ºF.
- Add 3 tablespoons of butter to an 8 inch cake pan. While the oven is preheating, place the pan in the oven to melt the butter. Add 1/3 cup brown sugar to the pan and spread it so that it evenly covers the bottom of the pan. Arrange the sliced plums in concentric circles and overlapping the slices slightly. Set the pan aside.
- In a medium bowl, sift the all-purpose flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and salt. Whisk to combine and set aside.
- In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and brown sugar and beat on medium-high for 3 minutes or until mixture is fluffy.
- Add the egg and beat until blended.
- Add the sour cream and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.
- Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl before gradually adding the flour mixture on low-speed. Once the flour has been incorporated, increase the speed of the mixer and beat until batter is smooth, don't over-beat the batter.
- Spoon batter into the pan and spread it gently and evenly onto the plums.
- Bake for approximately 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool cake on wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes before running a knife along the side of the pan. Place a serving plate over the cake pan and invert cake onto the plate.
- Serve the cake warm or at room temperature. Cake can be served plain or with lightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
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