It’s a chilly morning here in Sydney, after a wild day yesterday. Our family is home, doing the usual during this extended Covid time: working on a puzzle of America, making nachos for dinner (yum!), watching some Netflix, reading in bed, working on my new book…
How are you?? If it’s summer where you are, enjoy!
Every Sunday I have a little family tradition: I make dessert with dinner. These past couple of weeks, I’ve made the delicious Plum and Blackberry Cake you see above. Can you believe I didn’t take a picture of what it looks like baked? It’s just as pretty, served with some thickened cream and dusted with icing sugar.
For summertime people, plums and blackberries are fresh for you. Here in Australia, you can easily use a bag of frozen blackberries (skip the plums) and the cake is still perfect.
Can I share?
Plum & Blackberry Cake
4 eggs, separated
185 grams sugar (divided into 150 g and 35 g)
110 grams flour, sieved
80 grams melted butter
fruit: 4 plums (I slice off the ‘cheeks’) and a punnet of blackberries (OR 3/4 bag of frozen blackberries, around 400 grams)
Preheat oven to 160C (or 325 F). Line a 22 cm cake tin with baking paper.
Whisk egg yolks and 150g sugar until thick and pale. I use a mixer!
In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites to soft peaks, add in 35g sugar and whip until smooth and triple in volume.
Mix the egg white, flour and melted butter into the egg yolk mixture. Don’t overmix.
Pour batter into cake tin. Place plums on top and intersperse with blackberries. Be sure to poke some blackberries into the batter with a skewer.
Bake for 40-50 mins, depending on your oven. Check that a skewer draws out clean in the centre and the cake is golden.
Cool until just warm, and serve dusted with icing sugar and more blackberries. I also put pouring cream in a little jug on the table so people can add it if they love it.
That’s it! Trust me, this cake is totally worth it. It may look a little tricky, but it’s not — all you’re doing is whipping egg whites and egg yolks separately, combining it all together, popping in the fruit and into the oven.
Wherever you are, I hope you have a restful weekend. We’re cozy in Sydney, and I’m longing for summer…
Love Catherine x
PS.
Hi to the new people this week — I do send recipes I love a few times a year, so hope you’re okay with that! I’m a baker and always have been :) I find it so relaxing and creative.
A favourite extremely short poem about plums! “This is just to say…”
I’m thinking of getting this long black beach cover up for our pool days! Roll on, summer.
But right now, for Aussie winter, this lounge-around-home-after-a-bath set in blue looks super cosy. That long fuzzy cardigan looks so warm! Sorry, the pic is a little vavoom, but you’ll get the idea — ha! :)
My fun baking photos on Instagram here! I loved posting on Insta for a long time, and now I rarely do…but if you scroll my feed, you’ll find apple pie, macarons, cakes, cookies, all the things…