When I posted a photo of this to Instagram yesterday I called it plum cake but it’s officially a torte and with just the two eggs, it is definitely a little less cake-y than most cakes.

Anyway, I recommend the recipe to you.  I bought a whole load of Victoria plums on Friday with the vague intention of doing a seasonal weekend bake but with no specific recipe in mind.  I couldn’t find the Diana Henry recipe I thought I had in one of her books so I Googled “Diana Henry plum cake” and this was the result.  The observant among you will notice it uses purple plums, but I saw no reason to let that put me off and brazenly set to work with my pinkish yellow Victoria ones.

I do hope it’s fine to post the recipe here.

Ingredients

• 125g plain flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 115g butter, softened
• 200g soft light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• about 9 plums, halved and stoned
• 1 tbsp granulated sugar
• 2 tsp lemon juice

Method

(Preheat conventional oven to 180ºC)

You will need a 23cm springform tin.  Not sure why but Henry says ungreased.  I obeyed and it came out fine.

Don’t forget the sugar and lemon juice topping; I haven’t tried it without but have a feeling it makes all the difference, to both taste and texture.

• Henry doesn’t, but I used the all-in-one method and placed all the ingredients except for the plums, granulated sugar and lemon juice in the bowl of my KitchenAid and mixed at high speed for about 2 minutes until thoroughly blended.
• Spoon the mixture into your tin and place the plums, skin-side up, on top.
• Sprinkle the granulated sugar and lemon juice over the cake and bake (in the Aga baking oven).  Takes about 45 minutes, in a conventional oven or the Aga.
• The cake is done when it starts to come away from the sides of the tin and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
• Leave it to cool for 20 minutes on a rack and then release from the tin.  Be careful: it’s quite fragile and the plums have probably sunk to the bottom but this doesn’t matter at all.
• We ate it at room temperature but it would have been just as delicious slightly warm.