First of all I have to apologise for not writing a recipe post for a while. In all honesty, I mainly tend to bake in the Autumn/Winter as it’s the time of year when all I want is comfort food. There’s something really relaxing about getting out the mixing bowl and having something beautifully aromatic permeating the house, when it’s cold outside.

Today, much to my family’s delight, I got my baking mojo back and made a roasted plum cake which we had for dessert. Everything I bake, I really try and make sure that it doesn’t taste gluten-free (i.e. dry and grainy) and this is one such gem that unless you tell people, they wouldn’t know any different.

This recipe is one I adapted from a rather old Grazia magazine and works well as a gluten-free cake as it’s really moist and doesn’t have much flour in it. (If you’re not avoiding gluten, just substitute the gf flour with plain flour using the same measurements.)

Recipe:

For roasting the plums:

5 plums

small knob of butter

1 dsp sugar (I used golden caster)

1tsp cinnamon

1 clove

For the cake mix:

150g softened butter

150g golden caster sugar

75g gluten-free plain flour (I like Dove’s Farm)

1 and a half tsp baking powder

A half tsp of vanilla extract/vanilla bean paste

100g ground almonds

3 large eggs

1tsp of demerara sugar for sprinkling on top of the cake mix

Makes: 8 slices

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees (350F)

Method:

Halve the plums and remove the stones. Place them skin side down on a baking tray and sprinkle with the knob of butter, sugar, cinnamon and clove. Place in the pre-heated oven for 5-10 mins or when they can be pierced easily.

Remove from oven and allow to cool along with any of the juices.

Mix together the butter, caster sugar, vanilla and ground almonds:

…sieve in the flour and baking powder:

…then, once mixed-in, add the beaten eggs.

Chop the roasted plums roughly (I like mine in quite large chunks) and remove the clove:

…add these and any juice to the mix:

Place the mix in a lined 20cm cake tin, sprinkle with the tsp of Demerara sugar and place in the middle or bottom of the oven for 35 minutes.

I like to serve this cake warm, fresh out of the oven, with cream or custard, but that’s down to personal preference. (For the purpose of trying to make the cake look more appealing, I did sprinkle a bit of icing sugar on mine but it’s really not necessary.)