The crumble topping and brown sugar with the sweetness of the juicy baked plums is divine!
‘Ripe plums falling from the bough…” Confucius 500BC
Ingredients
- 75g mixed nuts (almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts)
- 85g Demerara sugar
- 50g plain flour
- 50g unsalted butter
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 250g ricotta, drained in sieve
- 160g golden caster sugar
- 160g unsalted butter
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- 200g self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 50ml milk
- 4 juicy plums, cut into 8th
- Icing sugar for dusting
- Serve with cinnamon or vanilla ice cream
METHOD
- Preheat your oven to 170c/340f/gas 4 and grease and line a round 20cm loose bottomed cake tin.
- Take a medium sized bowl and add the nuts, sugar, flour, butter and cinnamon. Rub them all together with your finger tips until you have a well mixed crumble mixture. Set aside while you prepare the cake.
- Tip the ricotta into a sieve a leave to drain off the water while you prepare the cake.
- Place the sugar and butter into a large bowl and cream them together until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix again. Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix until just combined. Add the milk, stir it through, and then the ricotta. Mix it very gently and the pour into the prepared tin.
- Arrange the plum wedges in a single layer over the top of the cake and then use your figures to scatter the crumble mixture over the plums. Allow the crumble mixture to sit loosely on the top and don’t be tempted to squash it down.
- Bake the cake for around 60 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
- Remove the outer ring from the cake tin and then allow the cake to cool on the base until cool enough to handle. Dust with icing sugar and then serve with ice cream.