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This beautiful Plum Upside-Down Cake features plums in adelicious butterscotch sauce on top of a tender spiced cake. This plum cake recipe is easy to make and can be used to make a variety of upside-down cakes. Try this recipe with nectarines, peaches, pineapple, and even blueberries.
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This Plum Upside-Down Cake is a flavourful dessert with a cake base spiced with cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger. The cake is tender and moist and the plums are baked in a mixture of butter and brown sugar and become caramelized, jammy and sweet. This plum cake will certainly become a favourite in your household.
How to Make a Plum Cake
Though it does take a bit of work to slice the plums, this pretty plum cake is easy to make. The ingredients needed to make this fresh plum cake from scratch are basic baking ingredients. Please see the recipe card at the end of the post for ingredient measurements.
Ingredients Overview:
- Fresh plums: There are many varieties of plums, you can use your favorite for this recipe, just make sure the fruit is ripe but still firm.
- Unsalted butter
- Brown sugar
- All-purpose Flour
- Sour cream
- One egg
- Vanilla extract
- Baking soda
- Ground cinnamon, cardamom and ginger: You don't need to use all three spices if you don't have them or there is one you don't like!
Tips for Successful Cake Making:
- When slicing the plums try and get even slices.
- Melt the butter in the cake pan in the oven as it's warming up. Once the butter is melted just add the brown sugar and spread it evenly over the bottom of the pan.
- If you take the time to arrange the plum slices by slightly overlapping them in concentric circles on top of the brown sugar and butter, the cake comes out looking beautiful.
- When adding the cake batter over the plums, make sure to gently spread the batter so that you don't disrupt the circular pattern of the plums.
- Let the cake cool in the pan on a cake rack for 10 to 15 minutes before running a knife around the edges of the cake and inverting the cake onto a serving plate.
This is a great cake recipe to use when you feel like being creative. You can easily switch the fruit portion to what's in season and to suit your tastes. If you can't find plums, try making this cake with fresh peaches, nectarines or pineapple.
Serving Suggestions
Serve this plum cake warm or at room temperature with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. If serving leftovers stored in the refrigerator, let the cake come to room temperature before serving.
Storage Instructions
This cake can be stored loosely covered at room temperature for a couple of days. For longer storage, cover cake and store in the refrigerator up to 5 days.
If you have leftover plums you're not sure what to do with, try making this Small Batch Plum Jam, it's what I love to make with extra plums!
Enjoy!
More Cakes to Try
- Fresh Peach and Blueberry Cake
- Cherry Almond Cake
- Mini Almond and Matcha Bundt Cakes
- Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Plum Upside-Down Cake
Author: Adapted from Martha Stewart
This beautiful Plum Upside-Down Cake features plums in adelicious butterscotch sauce on top of a tender spiced cake. The cake recipe is easy to make and can be used to make a variety of upside-down cakes. Try this recipe with nectarines, peaches, pineapple, and even blueberries.
4.82 from 64 votes
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Prep Time 20 minutes mins
Cook Time 40 minutes mins
Total Time 1 hour hr
Servings 10 people
Calories 234 kcal
Ingredients
Topping (Plum Layer)
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- ⅓ cup brown sugar packed
- 4-5 fresh plums you'll need enough plums to cover the bottom of an 8 inch pan, pitted and thinly sliced.
Cake
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
- ⅓ cup light brown sugar packed
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½ cup sour cream at room temperature, I used full-fat
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground cardamom optional
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger optional
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
Instructions
Place a rack in the middle of the oven and heat oven to 325ºF.
Add 3 tablespoons of butter to an 8 inch cake pan. While the oven is preheating, place the pan in the oven to melt the butter. Add 1/3 cup brown sugar to the pan and spread it so that it evenly covers the bottom of the pan. Arrange the sliced plums in concentric circles and overlapping the slices slightly. Set the pan aside.
In a medium bowl, sift the all-purpose flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and salt. Whisk to combine and set aside.
In the bowl of your mixer, add the butter and brown sugar and beat on medium-high for 3 minutes or until mixture is fluffy.
Add the egg and beat until blended.
Add the sour cream and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.
Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl before gradually adding the flour mixture on low-speed. Once the flour has been incorporated, increase the speed of the mixer and beat until batter is smooth, don't over-beat the batter.
Spoon batter into the pan and spread it gently and evenly onto the plums.
Bake for approximately 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Cool cake on wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes before running a knife along the side of the pan. Place a serving plate over the cake pan and invert cake onto the plate.
Serve the cake warm or at room temperature. Cake can be served plain or with lightly sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
Notes
1.When slicing the plums try and get even slices.
2. Spread the cake batter gently over the plums so you don't undue the circular pattern of the plums.
3. Let the cake cool in pan on a cake rack for 10 to 15 minutes before running a knife around the edges of the cake and inverting the cake onto serving plate.
Nutrition
Calories: 234kcalCarbohydrates: 28gProtein: 2gFat: 13gSaturated Fat: 8gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 3gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 49mgSodium: 134mgPotassium: 102mgFiber: 1gSugar: 17gVitamin A: 502IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 35mgIron: 1mg
Keyword Plum Cake, Plum Upside-Down Cake, Upside-Down Cake
Tried this recipe? Have any questions, comments or suggestions? Leave a comment below!Mention @sweetandsavourypursuits or tag #sweetandsavourypursuits!
This post wast originally published in September 2019. It has been updated. The recipe remains unchanged.
