Plum, Almond and Lime Cake

Claudia at The Brick Kitchen inspired me to bake this Plum, Almond and Lime Cake as a final indulgence with the last of summer’s stone fruit before they disappear and make way for loads of citrus, apples  and pears. She posted an image of a Plum, Pistachio and Lemon Cake on Instagram and it was just too hard to resist checking out her recipe.

I tweaked the recipe slightly and used all ground almonds rather half almonds and half pistachios, purely for the reason that that is what I had in the cupboard. I had some limes as well and decided to use them in stead of the lemon. I think the limes worked really well, adding a fruitiness to the citrus notes in the cake.

The plums adds a lovely tartness to the rich nutty batter. And of course it looks so pretty peeking out from the batter on top.

I did not want to make the drizzle, I find it usually too sweet so mixed some lime zest with few tablespoons of icing sugar to sprinkle on top. I think it works really well and looks rather festive  too. Toast some almond flakes to add a crunchy topping to the cake.

I am sure you can play around with any  fruit so this is a cake you can make all year round. Apples, pears and peeled citrus fruits will all work with the basic recipe. And play around with the nuts. Replace half the almonds with pistachios as Claudia did or with hazelnuts as I used before in this Hazelnut Olive Oil Cake with Fresh Plums recipe.

On a photography note, I have partnered with Nikon South Africa and will present a Food Photography Workshop on the 16th of March 2017 in Cape Town. I will spend the morning showing how I create and style an image and then hand over to participants to style and photograph their own images. I am really looking forward to this workshop and hope to see you there. Follow this link to book your spot.

Plum Almond and Lime Cake

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Ingredients

  

• 185 g butter at room temperature
• 220 g sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• finely grated zest of 3 limes
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 240 g ground almonds
• 90 g cake flour
• 10 ripe plums halved and stoned
• Lime Sugar:
• 2 tbsp icing sugar
• ½ tsp finely grated zest of 1 lime
• pinch of salt
• 25 g almond flakes toasted

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 175 degrees C
• Grease and line a 22cm springform cake tin with baking paper
• Cream butter and caster sugar in a stand mixer until light and fluffy
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating very well after each addition (don’t worry if the mix looks a bit separated)
• Beat in the vanilla and zest
• Fold through the ground almonds,all-purpose flour, baking powder, vanilla and lemon zest
• Pour the batter into the tin and smooth the surface
• Top with plum halves, cut side up
• Bake for 45-50min or until a skewer inserted comes out just clean. Leave in the tin to cool
• Mix the icing sugar, zest and salt and sprinkle over the cake with the toasted almonds
• Serve with greek yoghurt
• Adapted from The Brick Kitchen

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