lovesgenoise's Reviews
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The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century
By Amanda Hesser
W. W. Norton & Company - 2010
Purple Plum Torte : page 763
I enjoyed this cake very much, but I expect all the fanfare attached to this recipe is because of its ease and simplicity, and because baked Italian plums are absolutely delicious. When I tasted the base cake without plum, it was bland, though that might be because I didn't know how this book measures flour and may have used too much.
Flour Measurement:
I took one cup of flour to mean 150 grams because having equal weights of sugar and flour is a classic way to formulate a cake recipe. This is a maximum amount for one cup of flour, and corresponds to a dip-and-sweep method of measuring. If I make it again, I'll probably try less flour, and use unbleached AP, as this is specified in many of the earlier versions of this recipe.
Sugar:
This cake has a relatively high proportion of sugar, and I was worried about it being too sweet, so went with the lower amount of sugar (3/4 cup) mentioned in the recipe. With that and the tartness of the plums, the cake definitely came across as a not-too-sweet dessert- perfect for me but my daughter thought it wasn't sweet enough. I used an additional 1 T for the topping.
Typo:
An important point is that this recipe appears to have a typo when it calls for one tablespoon of cinnamon, as most other websites and books where this recipe is printed call for one teaspoon of cinnamon. I used half a teaspoon of cinnamon and thought it was plenty- any more might have obscured the flavor of the plums (I used the small Italian prune plums, which were delicious).
The combination of fruit and cinnamon, plus the rustic look of the cake, made me think of a breakfast or brunch cake, and that was how we ate most of it, in the morning with coffee. This cake baked up 1 5/8" tall and registered 200F in the center after 45" of baking.
useful (3)