Open Faced Plum Cake

PROJECT PATISSERIE: Adventure #15

One of the biggest injustices in the world, I think, is that sugar and butter aren’t diet foods.

My favorite quote on the subject comes from Jim Davis (for all those Dallas fans out there, he played the family patriarch Jock Ewing.) Mr. Davis said “It’s recommended that we eat at least three servings of vegetables a day. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie.” If I ever get myself together and open a bakery, that quote will be prominently displayed somewhere on the premises. Pumpkin pie, indeed.

With bathing suit season upon us, this week is all about a healthier option (mind you, I didn’t say “healthy”, just “healthier.” )While I’m no nutritionist, I would think that a few dabs of butter (instead of 4 sticks of it) and fresh fruit (instead of sugary jam) are healthier options, but to paraphrase Albert Einstein, it’s all relative!

I had great plans of baking a beautiful Southern-style strawberry cake this weekend (yes, I’m still on my strawberry kick!) but unfortunately the weekend’s plans didn’t allow for two leisurely hours in the kitchen, so I turned to my tried-and-true open-faced plum cake recipe. The occasion was the pancake breakfast and a bake sale at the Methodist Church in Omar. In my mind, the bake sale was on Sunday morning and I knew that I would have time to bake on Saturday afternoon.

I’ve been making this open-faced plum cake for a few years now. It’s delicious, takes very little prep work, and is done in a New York minute! It also reminds me a bit of a Czech open faced cake called a Bublanina that uses fresh, pitted cherries, or blueberries in place of the plums.

So, Saturday afternoon comes around and I settle in to make the cake. I’m measuring out ingredients, pre-heating the oven, and slicing the plums, happy as a lark to be in the same kitchen with my Mama (she lives in Baltimore, so we don’t get to cook together all too often) when suddenly I look at the calendar. The church bake sale was happening on the morning of the 7^th, that would be Saturday, the 7^th of June- not Sunday. The bake sale was already over!  If my hands weren’t all juicy from the plums I was slicing I would have slapped myself on the forehead! I used to have an awesome memory- that is, before I had children. Something about having two little ones running around the house has wrecked my short term memory completely. “Baby Brain” strikes again!

Alas, the cake didn’t make it to the church bake sale as intended, but I guess being stuck with something delicious and homemade isn’t the worst thing that could happen- bathing suit season or not!

Open Faced Plum Cake

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter a 9 inch spring form pan or pie dish. Whisk together  1 ½ c. of flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, and ½ tsp. salt. In a separate bowl, combine ¾ c. sugar, ½ c. of whole milk, ¼ c. of vegetable oil, and 1 large egg.  Fold the wet mixture into the flour mixture and stir until evenly mixed. Pour the batter into the prepared dish and smooth the top.

This next part is open to artistic interpretation: the plums. I’ve made this cake with apricots as well. Although I’ve never tried it, I imagine that pitted peaches would be lovely, too. The recipe I used directs the chef to pit and halve six black plums and arrange them cut sides up over the batter, pressing them down into the batter lightly. I was feeling creative that day and instead of halving them, I cut each pitted half into quarters ad arranged them in a sun burst pattern. How the chef arranges the fruit doesn’t affect the baking time at all so feel free to let your culinary inspiration flow!

Combine ¼ tsp of cinnamon with 1 Tbsp. of sugar and sprinkle over the top of the batter, dot with a little bit of butter and bake until the cake is golden brown and passes the toothpick test- about 30 minutes or so. The cake is best the same day that it comes out of the oven, but it’s pretty good the next day, too- if it lasts that long!

Ode to Joy: Strawberry-Lemon Cream Minis

PROJECT PATISSERIE: Adventure #14

My ode to summer continues this week with the mighty strawberry. Unlike rhubarb, I doubt I have to work very hard to sing its praises as the plethora of desserts featuring this delightful little berry are enough to speak to its overwhelming popularity.

The two headlining features in this week’s dessert are strawberries and lemon. While perhaps a less obvious combination than strawberries and rhubarb, they do work well together, as evidenced by the ubiquitous summertime drink, strawberry lemonade. In fact, if strawberry lemonade ever wanted to make a foray into the dessert realm, I am confident that this would be its first incarnation.

There seems to be a large contingent of Americans who are not fans of citrus desserts. I encourage the folks out there who dismissed this dessert at the “lemon” part to please give it a try (or encourage the baker in their life to give it a try and they can taste the spoils!) I say this with the utmost confidence because I am of the same proclivity: I love lemons and all manner of citrus in every possible way except in my pastry. But this dessert is different.

My brother Tom, who has always had a sweet tooth, moved to Charleston, South Carolina some years back. He said that his first summer there, with the intense heat and high humidity, almost killed him. Eventually he adjusted to the summer weather, but in the years since, he’s given up the majority of his sweets, finding that in the oppressive heat the last thing he wants to eat is sugar.

Tom and his stories of the Southern summers were in the back of my mind as I read through this recipe, particularly as it came from a southern-themed magazine where the editors pegged it as “refreshing.” With the sort of summers the South experiences, that’s saying something, but those editors weren’t kidding. The lemon makes this the first truly refreshing non-frozen dessert I think I’ve ever had. I’ll be sure to revisit this recipe in July when the North Country experiences our two weeks of unbearable heat!

These little guys present pretty well and are sure to entice lots of “ohhh”-ing and “awww”-ing from friends and family. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the recipe, as it actually goes rather quickly.

Miniature Strawberry-Lemon Cream Tart

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Roll out two pie crusts into two 12 inch circles on a work surface dusted with a bit of powdered sugar. Stamp out twelve,  6 inch circles. Fit the rounds, sugar side down, into some kind of miniature, oven-proof vessel. The recipe suggests miniature pie pans.  I experimented with a variety of things- including miniature tart rings, a miniature spring form pan, and individual ramekins. While I found that the tart pans produced the most visually appealing results, the ramekins produced the most useful ones. Because of the viscose nature of the strawberry topping, a crust that’s more cup-like (verses more plate-like) makes for tidier serving and eating!

Anyway, pick a vessel, fit with the dough, turning the edges under and crimping to make a decorative edge. Prick the fitted dough with the tines of a fork dipped in flour and bake until golden (the time will vary some depending on the container, but usually between 8 – 12 minutes.) Place the crusts on a cooling rack for 5 minutes and then take them out of their baking containers and allow to cool completely.

While those are doing their thing, prepare the lemon filling. Beat 12 ounces of room temperature cream cheese with 1 Tbsp. of sour cream until smooth. Add ½ c. of granulated sugar, 2 tsp. of lemon zest and 3 Tbsp. of strained lemon juice and beat until smooth (the recipe also adds “fluffy” but mine never fluffed up so I’m not sure what to do with that part.) Divide the cream evenly between the cooled pie crusts. Remember, warm pastry crust + cream filling= soup.  Really. Although I’m not the most patient of bakers, I do adhere to that one cardinal rule.

Once the crusts are filled with lemony-deliciousness, put them in a deep dish, cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate them until ready to serve. Reportedly they’ll stay happy in the refrigerator up to 24 hours.

Three hours or so before service, start on the strawberry topping. I made the strawberry topping the day before. During the following 24 hours or so that they were hanging out together, the sugar really went to town on the strawberries and the result was very liquid-y (delicious to be sure, but very runny.) Time the strawberries accordingly.

Process 1 ½ cups of hulled strawberries in a food processor or blender until smooth; strain and pour into a 3 qt. saucepan. Add 1 cup of granulated sugar. Stir.  As a side note( to any strawberry daiquiri fans out there) this strawberry-sugar mixture would make a divine base for a strawberry daiquiri. So much attention is paid to eating seasonally, but, in my opinion, not enough to drinking seasonally! We should all take time to the toast the seasons more often (with, or without, the addition of alcohol.)

Anyway, back to the dessert. In a small bowl, whisk together 2 Tbsp. cornstarch and ¼ c. of water and slowly add it to the strawberry-sugar mixture. Bring to a boil over medium heat and cook, stirring constantly for about a minute.  Remove from heat and mix in 1 Tbsp. of butter. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.  

Meanwhile, wash and hull ten cups of strawberries- or so the recipe says. I don’t know what on Earth one is supposed to do with ten cups of strawberries. I ended up using about 8 cups and I had plenty left over. Of course that’s not really a problem at my house. Leftover strawberry topping goes really well with left over cream- a delicious problem to be faced with! So, 8- 10 cups of strawberries. Cut some in half or quarters, leave the smaller ones whole. Mix the fresh strawberries gently with the cooled strawberry- cornstarch mixture and refrigerate until cool.

Just before serving, top each pastry crust with ½ cup of the strawberry topping and a dollop of Chantilly cream (or store-bought whipped topping), sit back, and enjoy!

I happen to love strawberries so I piled  them on!