Late summer plums – gloriously transformed.

What to do when the orchard at the local farmers market sells you unpalatably sour plums? Make a gluten-free plum cake, of course!

I thought briefly about tossing the batch of tart, bone-dry fruit to our squirrels but then remembered a recipe I tried two summers ago and loved – Hungarian Plum Cake – basically a vanilla cake festooned with halved plums.

Tradition calls for halving the plums and placing them atop the cake batter before popping in the oven. But since I had an abundance of the gorgeous purple gems on my hands, I even tossed some into the batter.  It ups the fiber content and gives the cake a regal hue.

As I do 90% of the time, I use a trusty box of  King Arthur Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake Mix as my base. Sometimes I’ll enhance it with tangerines, pineapples, cherries, or loads of coconut. But last week, plums took center stage. I love King Arthur mixes because they’re not overly sweet, which allows for the secondary ingredients to shine. This was completely the case with the plums. Even though they were inedibly tart in the raw, the baking process softened them and alchemized the flavor to deliciously mellow, which paired perfectly with the softness of the vanilla cake.

Raw and ready…

It’s not absolutely necessary to have a VitaMix, but nothing turns raw ingredients into an irresistibly velvety texture like a VitaMix. If you don’t have one, just do your best with a blender.

You’ll see from the pre-baking photos a bit of oil oozing at the sides of the cake pan. That’s because I gave up non-stick sprays years ago. Couldn’t stand their unnatural taste and ingredients (and how they polluted my kitchen air!) Using light olive oil has proven to be the perfect solution. Give it a try, I think you’ll be happy with the results.

Happy Baking!

Quickie Hungarian Plum Cake

Ingredients:

1 box King Arthur Gluten-Free Vanilla Cake Mix

About a pound of fresh plums, washed, pitted, and halved.

Light olive oil (extra virgin will burn) for greasing the pan

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 375 (the box calls for 350, but the addition of ‘wet’ fruit will require higher temperatures to cook the cake properly

Blend the cake mix according to instructions in a large mixing bowl. Scrape into a VitaMix beaker or large blender. Add about half the washed and pitted plums (no hard and fast rules here). Blitz until plums are thoroughly blended (starting on low speed and moving gradually to high).

Pour about 1/3 cup olive oil into a 13×9 glass or ceramic baking dish and coat bottom and sides thoroughly by tilting the baking dish. Add cake batter. Take remaining plum halves and dot the top of the cake with them (it’s OK if they sink a bit).

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes. Then check the cake. Every oven’s a little different. If the center is still soft or liquidy, keep baking, checking every 10 minutes. When center looks and feels just firm, turn oven off and let cake cool in the oven for at least 20 minutes. It will continue baking, but not at an aggressive level that will dry it out.

Remove cake from oven and serve slightly warm or cool.

Optional: Dollop with whipped cream (regular or vegan) or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Delicious…and even a little nutritious.