Two Sunday nights ago (July 20) I decided I should do a dress rehearsal of sorts for the dessert I planned on bringing to Ray’s parents’ BBQ this past Saturday. I did not want to wait until the day before to try a completely new recipe and result in an epic fail, so a practice run was called for.
I found a recipe for Plum Coffee Cake with Brown Sugar & Cardamom Streusel in the latest issue of Fine Cooking magazine, and aside from the mouth-watering photography, the overall recipe looked good. Plus, I had spent the majority of my childhood hating plums, so it was time to make amends.
Who’da Thunk It?
I learned from the article that there are close to 200 varieties of plums out there. There aren’t a ton of differences in their tastes — but there is a difference in their shelf life. So, if you buy a plum on Monday, there’s a good chance that if you go to buy another plum on Saturday, it will be a different variety. I thought this was kind of interesting.
Before I even decided to make the cake, I wanted to try some fresh plums first, and I purchased one red plum and one black plum. The red plum had a medium-to-deep red skin, and the fruit was a golden yellow, whereas the black plum’s skin was a purplish-black with maroon hints, and its fruit was a red-violet color. They were both about a day away from being optimally ripe, but I tried them anyway and found I preferred the black plum.
When I picked up plums from the store a week later to make the cake, I purchased the only ones I could find, which had a sign that said “tree ripe plums.” They had a darker skin, so I was guessing they were black plums; they weren’t, but that’s okay. Instead the fruit inside was the same golden color as the previously mentioned red plums. Que sera, sera.
I set myself up in the kitchen and made the streusel first, using heavy cream in lieu of whole milk (I couldn’t find a container of whole milk at the store that wasn’t smaller than a half gallon, and there is no way in hell I was going to consume it otherwise.). The streusel had a nice, clumpy consistency to it. Once I had that done, I stashed it in the fridge to chill while I made the cake batter.
The batter was fairly simple, though I didn’t have a pastry blender, nor did I know what one was, nor did I bother to google it. Instead I took an immersion blender to the dry ingredients with the pats of butter, and got roughly the same effect that the recipe was calling for. I folded the wet into the dry, mixed it up, and gave it a taste. Wow! Right on! You could taste and smell the cardamom. I poured the batter into my square pan, crumbled half of the streusel into it, added the quartered and pitted plums, and then topped with the remaining streusel.
Doesn’t this look freaking delicious?
Ray agreed to be my guinea pig on this one, and we each had a piece of the cake paired with River Horse’s Brewer’s Reserve Belgian Double White (2W). The cake was balanced — not too moist or dry, not too sweet or dull. The fruit texture complemented the texture of the cake and the streusel. Overall, we felt it made a delicious cake.
I have made the cake twice now. The second time did include some black plums (unfortunately, not all the ones I picked out of the “black plum” bin were truly black); Ray bought a pastry blender for me; and when we had it after dinner, I had Ray’s mom warm it up in the oven for a little bit.
The results were astounding! We polished the cake off, with Steph taking a tiny extra piece, and Ray and his dad splitting the rest of the leftover piece. Everyone liked it, and even Tim really liked it, and he typically hates cake! Whoo! Mission accomplished.
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