This beautiful Plum Upside-Down Cake features plums in a delicious butterscotch sauce on top of a tender spiced cake. This plum 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.
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 plum cake will certainly become a favourite in your household.
How to Make a Plum Cake
Though it does take a bit of work to slice the plums, this pretty plum cake is easy to make. The ingredients needed to make this fresh plum cake from scratch are basic baking ingredients. Please see the recipe card at the end of the post for ingredient measurements.
Ingredients Overview:
- Plums: There are many varieties of plums, you can use your favourite for this recipe, just make sure the fruit is ripe but still firm.
- Unsalted butter
- Brown sugar
- All-purpose Flour
- Sour cream
- One egg
- Vanilla extract
- Baking soda
- Ground cinnamon, cardamom and ginger: You don't need to use all three spices if you don't have them or there is one you don't like!
Tips for Successful Cake Making:
- When slicing the plums try and get even slices.
- 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.
- If you take the time to arrange the plum slices by slightly overlapping them in concentric circles on top of the brown sugar and butter, the cake comes out looking beautiful.
- 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 the cake cool in the pan on a cake rack for 10 to 15 minutes before running a knife around the edges of the cake and inverting the cake onto a serving plate.
This is a great cake recipe to use when you feel like being creative. You can easily switch the fruit portion to what's in season and to suit your tastes. If you can't find plums, try making this cake with fresh peaches, nectarines or pineapple.
How to Serve
Serve this plum cake warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. If serving leftovers stored in the refrigerator, let the cake come to room temperature before serving.
How to Store
This cake can be stored loosely covered at room temperature for a couple of days. For longer storage, cover cake and store in the refrigerator up to 5 days.
If you have leftover plums you're not sure what to do with, try making this Small Batch Plum Jam, it's what I love to make with extra plums!
Enjoy!
More Cakes to Try
- Fresh Peach and Blueberry Cake
- Cherry Almond Cake
- Mini Almond and Matcha Bundt Cakes
- Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Plum Upside-Down Cake
Ingredients
Topping (Plum Layer)
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- ⅓ 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
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½ cup sour cream at room temperature, I used full-fat
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom optional
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger optional
- ¼ teaspoon 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.
Notes
Nutrition
This post wast originally published in September 2019. It has been updated. The recipe remains unchanged.
Litsa
Friday 23rd of December 2022
Can you use yogurt in place of the sour cream?
Fida | Sweet and Savoury Pursuits
Saturday 24th of December 2022
Hello, I have not done so myself, but I think you can use yogurt, as long as it's not zero fat.
Kristy P.
Friday 9th of December 2022
Superb recipe! I used a springform pan as well, but put a pan under it. I think next time, I'll just use a regular round pan. I don't like when the buttery sugary goodness leaks out. I did use parchment paper just on the bottom and I think that was a good idea. I look forward to trying this with apples or just alone. The flavor is fantastic! Thanks for sharing it!
Litsa
Saturday 24th of December 2022
@Kristy P., thank you
Fida | Sweet and Savoury Pursuits
Saturday 10th of December 2022
Thank you, so glad you enjoyed this recipe! I appreciate you taking the time to let me know how this recipe went for you ☺️.
Sophie
Saturday 12th of November 2022
I had lot of PLUMS..Italian...I was suspicious after tasting the batter, whether it would be sweet enough. It was plenty enough sweet, since the Italian plums when cooked have the most rich, sweet taste (they taste like almost nothing when raw). It made an impressive display of a dessert when flipped onto plate.
If I were to make this again, I would line the sides/bottom of my springform with some parchment...the butter leaked (as usually happens with this kind of thing) out of the pan with a bit of sugar. Oh well :0) a tiny bit of mess in the stove (I knew this was going to happen...was just being lazy to not put a pan underneath). I was going to get a new springform anyway!
This cake gets more flavorful as it is cools...can taste the spices (vs tasting it ASAP while warm!). I can't wait to try it again in a few hours with a cup of tea!
Fida | Sweet and Savoury Pursuits
Saturday 12th of November 2022
Hi Sophie, thank you for letting me know how this plum cake went for you, I'm so sorry about the mess in the oven, maybe next time try wrapping the springform pan with a layer of foil. I agree that cooking plums really brings out their sweetness. I hope you enjoyed your slice and cup of tea!
Heather
Sunday 16th of October 2022
Do you need to peel the plums? Thank you
Fida | Sweet and Savoury Pursuits
Monday 17th of October 2022
Hello Heather, I do not peel the plums when making this recipe :).
Natalie Leroux
Saturday 18th of September 2021
Lovely Recipe! I was gonna combine peaches and plums but I ended up just doing plum since I had enough of them. Turned out great, the combo of butter and brown sugar tastes like its coated in honey, which I may add next time :) I did notice that the instructions and amounts are different for the butter in the topping, the ingredients listing 2 tbsp while the instructions said 3. I used 3 just in case and it definitely is a lot of butter but still very very delicious!
Sweet and Savoury Pursuits
Sunday 19th of September 2021
Hello Natalie, thank you for writing and letting me know how this recipe went for you. So happy to hear you enjoyed it. You are correct about the discrepancy in the amount of butter. I checked and it's three tablespoons. I've made the correction .