Upside Down Plum And Almond Cake

Yay! We got to eat our plums before the bears did this year. 

One of the joys of living in the mountains is letting your fruit stay on the trees long enough to get ripe enough to eat but getting to them before the bears do. Some years we win, some years we lose.

This year we won. 

At least with the plums....

Anyway, I decided to make a cake to celebrate the plum harvest. I wanted something that showed off the lovely purple color of the fruit so decided against chopping it up and stirring it into the batter. This cake looks beautiful and is super easy to whip up. From start to finish in about an hour. 

Upside Down Plum And Almond Cake

Ingredients

Bottom Layer

1/2 cup almonds, chopped

2 Tbsp butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

11 - 12 plums, quartered

Cake Layer

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

pinch salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 tsp vanilla

2/3 cup Greek yogurt, plain

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Line a 10 inch tart pan with parchment paper and sprinkle in the chopped almonds.

In a pan over medium heat, stir together the 2 Tbsp butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and the plums. Cook and stir *gently* for 3 - 4 minutes. Just until plums start to soften and brown sugar/butter is bubbling. 

Remove from heat and let cool 5 minutes.

Using a fork, arrange the plums in circles on top of the almonds in the tart pan. Pour the brown sugar/butter mixture from the pan over the plums.

Prepare cake - In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. 

In a larger mixing bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Beat in the sugar until well combined.

Beat in the egg and vanilla.

Alternately beat in the dry ingredients with the Greek yogurt until well combined. Batter will be thick.

Carefully spoon the batter over the plums in the tart pan and then gently smooth spoonfuls together (see pic below).

Bake at 350 until top is golden brown and toothpick inserted near center comes out clean, about 30 - 40 minutes.

Let cool 5 - 10 minutes then invert cake onto a wire cooling rack. Carefully remove the tart pan and parchment paper from the cake.

Let cool. 

Serve as is........

Or, even better, with vanilla ice cream or whipping cream....

A few notes -- You can make this in an 8 or 9 inch pan but then I would definitely half the plum and almond, bottom layer. 

If you do use a smaller pan then you would also have to increase the cooking time. I would say it would between 40 - 50 minutes to bake instead of  30 - 40. Just keep an eye on it. 

I like the bigger pan because there is a better topping-to-cake ratio. 

 

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