Plum Almond Cake makes for a light, fruity cake that is perfect to serve with coffee, tea or even munch on for breakfast. You wouldn’t know it from how pretty this cake is, but you’d be surprised to hear that two of the ingredients are yogurt and olive oil:)).
Mediterranean Plum Flavors
I grew up in the Mediterranean and we love plums and most fruits really. We enjoy them fresh when seasonal, we add them to cakes and desserts and we preserve them in jams and marmalades. We even dry plums and make a winter hot drink with boiled prunes.
I make this Red Plum Jam anytime I find the plums at a convenient price at end of season.
Please keep in mind that plums have different varieties that change in color, flavor and shape. I used about 5 plums like the ones shown below, but if you were to use let’s say Italian plums, you’d need about 12 of them to make up the volume.
Ingredients & Process
I use a lot of ingredients for this cake, but believe me it’s worth it.
- Dry Ingredients – all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, powder sugar and pinch of salt
- Wet ingredients – eggs, butter, olive oil, yogurt, lemon juice, vanilla extract, almond extract, orange liquor
- Fruits – chop 2 plums, slice the other 3. Zest 1 lemon.
- Nuts – sliced almonds
Usually as with most cake, I whisk baking powder and baking soda into the all purpose flour. Then I use a hand held mixer and mix eggs, sugar, butter and the extracts together.
Add yogurt, olive oil and lemon juice then slowly add the all purpose flour to create the batter. Incorporate chopped plums and lemon zest into the batter using a spatula.
Pour batter into a springform pan (9 inch diameter). Add brown sugar over sliced plums, then cover the top of the batter with plums. Use a pattern so the cake comes out pretty when baked.
Then add sliced almonds over plums. Bake cake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (about 180 degrees Celsius) for about an hour. Use the middle rack and if towards the end, you notice the cake is getting too brown on top, cover the cake with aluminum foil for the last 15 minutes.
Let the cake cool down before cutting into and serving. Add powder sugar on top of the cake if desired.
Tips and Notes
I make this cake quite often and what I have realized is that sometimes I don’t have all the ingredients on hand so usually I swap some ingredients.
- If you don’t have olive oil or don’t like to add olive oil to a cake you can replace the olive oil with avocado oil. Or instead of oil, just add half a stick of butter, so in total you’d have 1.5 sticks of butter.
- If you don’t have almond extract, use 2 tbsps of vanilla extract instead of 1.
- You can skip adding almonds on top of the cake if you are allergic to nuts or don’t like almonds. They add flavor and crunch and texture to the cake but you can also skip them if you have issues with almonds.
- Here in US I prefer serving this cake with powdered sugar, most people are familiar with it and like it. But if you are from the Mediterranean, I bet you’re used to cakes covered in syrup too. So feel free to add syrup over the cake if you so like. Let the cake absorb it overnight then serve the next day. I wouldn’t remove the cake from springform if I added syrup.
Plum Almond Cake
Equipment
- 1 spatula
Ingredients
- 2.5 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 5 plums
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 3 eggs
- 0.5 cups olive oil
- 1 cup yogurt
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp almond extract
- 1 lemon juice and zest
- 2 ozs orange liquor
- 0.5 cup sliced almonds
- 0.25 cup powdered sugar
- 0.5 cup raw cane sugar or brown sugar
- pinch salt don't add if you're using salted butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (about 180 C)
- Add baking powder and baking soda over all purpose flour, whisk and set aside.
- Using a handheld mixer, mix eggs and sugar until creamy. Add butter and continue mixing. Add slowly the vanilla extract, almond extract, lemon juice, orange liquor, olive oil, yogurt and mix until everything is incorporated.
- Slowly add the flour mix, add little by little not all at once. Add pinch of salt too. Once it's hard to mix with the mixer, remove and use the spatula to scrape the side and mix into the batter. Add chopped plums and lemon zest and fold into the batter with spatula.
- Add brown sugar over sliced plums and let the plums absorb it.
- Spray the springform pan with non-stick spray, then flour lightly. Add batter on the pan and use the spatula to spread evenly.
- Add sugared sliced plums over batter and create a symmetric pattern to your taste, it'll make the cake look so pretty.
- Spread the sliced almonds over plums. Bake for about 1 hour.
- Let the cake cool down for few hours before cutting into it. Garnish with powdered sugar before serving. Enjoy:)
Video
Notes
- Leftovers – I cover the leftovers with a plastic wrap or if you have a sealed cake stand, it’s good on room temperature for a day. Then I refrigerate for 2-3 days. It never lasts longer than that.
Nutrition Label
Nutrition
Alcohol evaporates during baking, but it helps give the plum cake a richer flavor and a moist crumb. I love adding a citrus based alcohol to plum cakes like Cointreau or Grand Marnier. If you don’t like citrus type flavors, then Amaretto would work great with plum/almond flavor profile.
Yes you can. These plums are sweet and juicy and they give a beautiful red color to this cake. Other plums might not be so sweet so adjust for sugar accordingly. Also, size matters. I used 5 plums for this cake but if you are using Italian plums, you might need 12-14 of them since they’re smaller.
If you would like to save this recipe for later, please save the below image to your boards in Pinterest. Let me know in comments if you made this cake and you have any questions. If you loved it, I’d appreciate a 5 star rating too. Feel free to tag me your pictures in social media if made this recipe:). Thank you!
Instagram: mediterranean_latin_love or Facebook: Mediterranean Latin Love Affair.
Other Mediterranean Desserts
Feel free to browse some of my other Mediterranean desserts:
- Sour Cream Cookies (Kifle)
- Albanian Baklava (Bakllava)
- Mediterranean Almond Cookies
- Orange Cake
- Apple Honey Cake
Janice
Have you ever used any fruit other than plums? I’m specifically thinking of peaches, which are more plentiful for me. Seems like the texture might be the same. Your thoughts? Thanks Janice
Sonila
Hi Janice, I have made similar cakes with peaches, apples, and pineapple. You’re right, with peach it tastes amazing!! If you’re using peach in syrup, you can use some of the syrup to soften the cake and let it absorb before you cut it. It will keep the cake so soft. Now I’m craving a slice:).
Patsy
Am just about to make it, but have to calculate some of the ingredients into metric quantities Could you adjust your recipes to include both metric and american quantities?
admin
Hi Patsy, I’ll try my best to include metric going forward. Since I live in US, everything I buy in the markets here is in ounces or pounds etc.
Do you use cups & tablespoon measurements? If so the only one you need to calculate in this recipe is the butter. 1 stick butter is about 113 grams