A Plethora Of Plums

Last night I went to a girlfriend's house for dinner and finally got to ravage her Italian Plum trees. I've been waiting for weeks for these little beauties to ripen and finally, finally, I got to pick all the little black beauties my heart desired.

Since it was girls night and we all bring something to share for dinner, I decided to make dessert. While my favorite plum dessert is an upside down cake with sour cream from my idol: Ms. Martha Stewart. But while perusing Facebook yesterday afternoon (for work of course, I am the social media girl ya know) I found a great looking recipe from one of my favorite magazines: Coastal Living. Plum upside down pudding cake. Sounded fantastic, so I  ran off to the store to grab a few things and got to work on dessert.

I did make a couple mistakes. I used too large of a baking dish and not nearly enough plums - which is just plain silly since I had an entire bushel of plums at my disposal. duh. And I would also change a couple things in the recipe. I'd substitute brown sugar for the white refined sugar and I'd use way more butter and brown sugar. I mean why not? Everything's better with butter (and brown sugar)!

But even with my couple of mistakes, the dessert turned out fantastic and was completely gobbled up, with not a crumb leftover! So if you have some plums at your disposal, try this recipe for a quick weeknight dessert. It was fast, easy and very yummy! Thank you Coastal Living.

Plum Upside-Down Pudding Cake

Ingredients:
4 small red or black plums, sliced

• 1/2 cup sugar, divided
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup whole or low-fat buttermilk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• Sweetened whipped cream

Directions:
1. Combine plums, 1 tablespoon sugar, lemon juice, and 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt in a bowl, tossing gently.

• 2. Grease sides and bottom of a 9-inch cast-iron skillet or deep-dish pie pan. Cover bottom with plum slices, overlapping slightly.
• 3. Whisk together eggs, remaining sugar, buttermilk, vanilla, and butter until well blended.
• 4. Combine flour, baking powder, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt; whisk into egg mixture. Pour batter over fruit. Bake at 375° for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in pan about 30 minutes.
• 5. Run tip of knife around edge of cake to loosen. Invert onto a platter, and serve with sweetened whipped cream.