A delightfully fresh-tasting, easy-bake cake with summer stone fruit and a surprisingly palate-pleasing spiced flavour profile. A perfect finish to any meal!
This is by far the easiest cake I’ve ever made and if that’s not enough to entice you to break out your cake pans and oven mitts, then get this, Dear Reader – this cake is also the most delicious cake I’ve ever tasted for such little effort.
I had so much stone fruit on hand, I decided to make two just to show you how gorgeous this cake can be no matter what fruit you decide to use. I love the contrast between these two. Look at the deep purple colour from those plums, and the bright orange from the fresh apricots.
Living so close to St. Jacob’s most certainly has its advantages. We like to go there more than a few times each year to stock up on fresh produce. This past weekend, we bought more than we needed, but in our defense, it’s difficult to keep walking through the market without reaching into your wallet. These local vendors are auctioning off their fruit and veggies, preserves, baked goods, meats, dried legumes, etc., and it’s hard to say no. Who can turn down two large baskets of fruit for seven dollars?
In less than two hours of walking around the outdoor vendors, and checking out the indoor market, we managed to spend about sixty dollars and had so much to show for it. We got a basket of the apricots and the plums, of course, and three bags of different varieties of organic popping corn, a large bunch of radishes, two large stalks of green onions, a bunch of rhubarb, a basket of green beans, and a basket of nectarines.
The highlight for though, was finding a small inside vendor that sold one-pound bags of organic turtle beans, black sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, and black lentils, etc. Can you believe they were only four dollars per bag?? I can’t wait to start cooking with those!
But, first, Dear Reader, I needed to take full advantage of the copious amounts of fruit before it began to deteriorate. These cakes seemed like the perfect way to use up the fruit. I loved that the fruit itself needed no other ingredients added to them. Their only purpose was to sit on top of the cakes and bake into the batter.
My favourite part of these cakes is the taste that is created in the parts where the juice from the fruit seeps down into the cake batter to create these bursts of flavour and extreme amounts of moistness. These cakes have it all – moist pockets of batter, large pieces of fresh fruit, firmly baked chunks where the fruit has not infused the batter, and most of all, a very summery fresh flavour.
Easy Spiced Stone Fruit Cake is bound to be your favourite summer entertaining dessert. And be sure to change it up, Dear Reader; try peaches, damsons, nectarines, or cherries!
Lastly, Dear Reader, this cake requires pumpkin spice blend. I highly recommend you make your own instead of buying it. It’s much cheaper to just combine the spices you probably already have on hand. Here’s a link to my version of The Pioneer Woman’s Pumpkin Spice recipe.
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Easy Spiced Stone Fruit Cake
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*
- 1 cup butter, room temperature
- 1 cup sugar, plus one tablespoon
- 2 large eggs
- 8 plums, sliced into 8 wedges*
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8 inch cake pan with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and pumpkin pie spice. Set aside.
- Using a handheld mixer, blend together well the sugar and butter. Once fully blended, add the eggs to the mixture one at a time and blend after each addition.
- Next, add the dry ingredients and blend into the wet ingredients until just incorporated. Do not over mix.
- Scoop the batter into the cake pan. Spread the batter evenly being careful not to disturb or move the parchment paper.
- In a circular pattern, place the fruit directly on top of the batter. Sprinkle the one tablespoon of sugar over the top of the fruit.
- Bake for 45 minutes. Check the cake for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the cake batter. If the toothpick comes out clean, the cake is done. If not, return the cake to the oven and continue to bake in 5 minute increments. It's important to note that sometimes the amount of juice in the fruit will affect the baking time.
- Once done, remove the cake from the oven and allow to rest in the cake pan for at least 25 minutes. Carefully remove the cake from the pan and transfer to a wire cooling rack to continue cooling.
- Serve at room temperature with ice cream or a dusting of confectioner's sugar. (Or both!)
Notes
2. If using large purple plums, 8 will be fine. Since apricots are much smaller, you'll need about 12-14 to completely cover the top of the cake.
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“When someone asks if you’d like cake or pie, why not say you want cake and pie?” – Lisa Loeb
Anne Jeltema says
This spiced stone fruit cake was truly delicious. . Tender inside with a slight crunch to the outside parts without the fruit. A keeper recipe for sure.