Many of you requested me to post Christmas special food here, but I am a person who has neither celebrated it at my home nor did I meet anyone who has celebrated it. Christmas to me was always confined to the beautiful arrangements made in every corner of my native town. When I went to do my bachelors, all my cooking was confined to easy-to-do mix and match food, so no special christmas food there. Then while working in Bangalore, I used to be so tired after coming home from work that, I never celebrated any festivals – not even the festivals I was used to. It is after coming to US, through all other food blogs and through the celebrations going around, I have started to take interest in western festival food. But unfortunately, with so many things going on in my life at this moment, I cannot spend any time to read and understand about it. I am sure I will do it by next year’s Christmas.
One of you asked me for the recipe of plum cake. I got few recipes online or in library, but could not try them yet and I don’t post anything here unless I try it myself. When I was searching for it sometime back, I got this plum-streusel cake recipe. I changed it so that I could make this cake with whatever ingredients I had at home. This cake is not very sweet and the streusel gives it a crunchy topping.
Ingredients:
Struesel:
¾ cup sugar (I used pure cane sugar)
3 tbl spn all purpose flour or maida
2 tea spn cinnamon powder
¼ tea spn salt
2 tbl spn softened butter
½ cup chopped walnuts
Cake:
8 halved and pitted pulms
¼ cup sugar(for coating plums)
1 tea spn baking powder
1 cup all purpose flour or maida
¾ cup sugar
3 tbl spn softened butter
1 egg
½ cup milk
Method:
Mix all the ingredients of streusel to get a consistency shown below.
Mix ¼ cup sugar with plums till they are well coated with sugar.
Blend sugar and butter. When it is well mixed, add egg and blend again. Now add milk and mix well. Mix sifted all purpose flour or maida, baking powder slowly by mixing continuously.
Grease a oven proof baking pan. (I used medium loaf pan for this). Spread half of the cake batter in the pan.
Spread half the streusel on it.
Spread 8 plum halves on top.
Spread remaining cake batter on top.
Spread remaining streusel and then plums.
Bake in the middle rack of the preheated oven(300F) for 30-40mins or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Wrap remaining cake with a silver foil before refrigerating them.
Makes 8 big pieces
Preparation time : 1hr.
Lesson learnt: The plum halves are bit hard to cut after baking. So chop them finely or make slices lengthwise and use.
Wow ….This is a different cake. Less of eggs too. When i was reading the post, i was wondering how to cut the cake as the plum will be hard, as i had pur sometime back dried plums and prunes, but i got my answer at the end of your post in Lesson Learnt. Thanks for a different cake Shilpa.
Shilpa, thanks for another great recipe. I love that it has less eggs (as Aruna mentioned) and lower in sugar too.
Today I tried the layered paratha and it came out really well. Honestly I had been trying diff methods for ages, but they were mostly what people had told me, I had never seen it made. Your pic presentation was greatly helpful. Thanks again for sharing.
Thia is interesting!!!! Very different from the usual cakes….. Thanks Shilpa!!! 🙂
Shilpa, very nice presentation. I like it. Interesting and tempting to prepare it . Can I omit Egg? Viji
shilpa-
i have a family recipe(i am half german) for rhubarb or apple “coffee cake”(often served with coffee) that is very much like this one with plums…..it is interesting that these recipes are of german/austrian origin…probably from vienna, because you can see the Muslim/Arab influence of the cinnamon/ walnut combination, as this city at one time was a major trade center for spices between the Muslim merchants and the west…..these cakes, and also carrot/zucchini cake, are almost like HALVAH made to be a cake…i think sometimes this is what happened long ago, so it is a good symbol of world peace to my mind….:-)
also, shilpa, sometimes the dried plums are soaked in warm water or liquor beforehand so they become softer. you might also like to try raisins or dried apricots instead too……my own aayi 🙂 is QUITE fond of this cake made with dried cranberries and orange peel(fresh or candied)…..i like it with apples and crysyallized/(UK:”stem”) ginger…..:-)…and a pinch of elaichi…
Very nice! Plum is different and great addition! Glad you are on to the baking wagon with us!:)) YAY!!!
nice step by step photos. did u use dried plums or fresh ones?
That looks really rich and delicious!..I like it even more because it has plums in it- my fav!
Enjoy the holidays!
Trupti
Hey nice cake, I tried your date cake and it was yummy,thanks again.
Hey Shilpa,
Just today baked a cinnamon streusel, with a ready made mix.I love to try your way- from the scratch!Thanks for the recipe.I am book marking this!
Hi Shilpa,
I’ve never heard of layering of streusel and plums for a coffee cake before, so this is a different recipe that I have to try in the future. Looks delicious.
shilpa,very nice recipe to celebrate for christmas. Your opinion abt celebrations of christmas mach with me too…..I love cakes and love to prepare..but always just wait for the right time and green signal;-) hope you understood all the matter of fat.Thus I prepare rarely.Thanks for sharing shilpa
Your recipe sounds good and I would love to try it, but you don’t say what temperature the over should be at. Can you please let me know and maybe add the oven temperature to the recipe. Thanks!
Shilpa: Thanks for pointing out. I updated the post.
Hi Shilpa,very nice recipie.Uhave used fresh plums in ur recipie right..?..As u said plums are difficult to cut after baking, can we cut the plums into v.small pieces.
No..these are dried plums.
Can i try this recipie with fresh plums..?..I got some to try out this cake..thnks for ur reply.
I think it will work with fresh ones too .