Plum Upside Down Cake
This Plum Upside Down Cake is truly the most delicious tea-time treat and much easier to make than you might think. Light, fluffy orange-scented sponge topped with syrupy plums? Yes please!
When it’s stone fruit season, I always have a surplus because I just get too excited and always land up buying way more than we can eat. I knew I wanted to develop a cake recipe using plums and an old-fashioned upside down cake seemed like just the thing I was looking for. What I love so much about this recipe is that the cake layer is incredibly light and fluffy, subtly scented with orange zest and just sweet enough. This allows the plums to truly shine and the end result is a cake that isn’t too sweet, and the perfect dessert or afternoon treat served with a dollop of cream.
Ingredients Needed
- Plums. Any stone fruit can be substituted. This would be delicious with peaches, nectarines, apricots or cherries.
- Butter.
- Brown sugar.
- Heavy cream.
- Salt.
- For the cake: The cake is my lemon drizzle cake recipe with orange zest instead of lemon zest. You’ll need Greek yogurt, a neutral oil like avocado oil or canola oil, eggs, flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, orange zest and vanilla extract.
How To Make Plum Upside Down Cake
- Prepare the plums: Halve, pit and slice the plums then prepare the caramel topping. Pour the caramel mixture into a line cake pan and place the sliced plums on top.
- Make the batter: Stir all the batter ingredients in a large bowl then spoon over the plums. Bake until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
- Turn out: Run a palette knife along the edge of the cake as it comes out of the oven but then allow it to cool for at leat 20 minutes in the pan. Repeat the palette knife step then carefully invert the cake onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.
- Serve: Serve with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Storing Instructions
The cooled cake can be kept covered (under a glass cake dome is best) at room temperature for up to 4 days. There is no reason to refrigerate this cake but if you really want to, simply place it in an airtight container and keep it in the fridge. Allow to come to room temperature before serving.
Ingredients
For the plum topping
- 6 medium plums sliced (approximately 300g)
- 6 tbsp (140g) butter
- 6 tbsp (90g) brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tbsp (30ml) heavy cream
- pinch of salt
For the cake layer
- 2 cups (250g) flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup (260g) Greek yogurt plain low fat yogurt can be substituted
- ¾ cup (175g) sugar
- 3 eggs
- ½ cup (125ml) neutral oil I prefer using Avocado oil
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 orange zested
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C and grease and line a 8-inch/20cm layer cake pan (I use a Nordicware cake pan that is 2.5inches/6.3cm deep) with parchment paper. I only line the bottom of the pan but you can do the sides too if you prefer.
- Combine the butter, brown sugar, vanilla, cream and salt in a small saucepan and melt together for a few minutes.
- Pour the caramel into the lined cake pan and swirl the pan to create an even layer.
- Halve the plums them remove the pit and slice each half into 4-6 slices, depending on your preferred thickness. I like them around ½-cm thick.
- Lay the plums, overlapping, into the prepared pan. Squeeze them in tight as they will lose volume during baking and you want plenty of plums on the cake.
- To make the cake batter, whisk the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) together in a large mixing bowl.
- Combine the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl or mixing jug.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
- Spoon the cake batter over the plums.
- Level the top of the cake with a spatula. Place in the preheated oven and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven, run a palette knife around the edge then allow the cake to cool for 20-30 minutes.
- Before turning out, run the palette knife around one more time then carefully flip onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.
- Slice and serve with whipped cream.