plum ricotta crumble cake

Last month I made a peach raspberry ricotta crumble cake which was very well received and it got me thinking. As it’s plum season and until yesterday I’d not made my annual plum cake, I decided to play around with the recipe a little to see whether I could add some ricotta cheese to the cake.

A few years ago when I wrote a food column for the blog decor8, I made a plum crumble cake. I used the crumble topping from a recipe in Belinda Jeffrey’s book, Mix and Bake whilst the plum cake was adapted from a Gretta Anna recipe.

For this cake instead of just topping the cake with plums I made a filling of plums, some ricotta and half the crumble mix which I scattered over the plums before adding the remaining cake batter. I haven’t eaten my piece of the cake yet but it’s looking pretty moist and delicious.

Here’s the recipe for you which makes an 8 inch/20cm cake. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20 ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20ºC.

Plum Ricotta Crumble Cake
Crumble Topping
½ cup (70 gm) walnuts
¼ cup (55 gm) brown sugar
¼ cup (35 gm) plain flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
30 grams (1 oz) cold unsalted butter cut into small chunks

Crumble Topping
To make the crumble, pulse the walnuts in a food processor just a few times until coarsely chopped. Tip out into a small bowl then combine the flour, brown sugar and cinnamon in the food processor. Add the butter and pulse until just combined. Place the crumble topping into the bowl containing the chopped walnuts and mix until incorporated . Refrigerate the topping while making the cake.

Cake Ingredients

6 small plums
1 tablespoon caster sugar
150 grams unsalted butter
150 grams caster sugar
1 tsp grated lemon rind
2 eggs
200 grams self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
125 mls (½ cup) milk
150 g well drained ricotta cheese

Cake

Cut the plums in half and remove the pits. Slice each plum half into quarters, put into a small bowl and sprinkle over the tablespoon of caster sugar. Set aside. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F. Grease and line the base and sides of an 8 inch/20cm round tin with baking paper.

To make the cake, cream the butter, sugar and lemon rind together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and mix until combined well. Sift the flour with the baking. Add the flour alternately with the milk to make a soft batter. You may not need to use all the milk. Spoon half the batter into the greased and lined tin. Crumble over the ricotta and half of the reserved crumb mixture then top with half the plum slices. Gently spoon the remaining batter over the fruit. Top the cake with the remaining plum slices then sprinkle the top of the cake with the crumble.

Bake the cake for 60-75 minutes or until the cake tests cooked when a skewer is inserted into it. Some of the plums may sink to the bottom of the tin while cooking. Cool the cake in the tin for about 15 minutes before turning out to cool on a wire rack. If desired, dust the top of the cake with icing sugar just before serving.

We’re having a birthday morning tea for one of our colleagues on Wednesday so the cake is languishing in the deep freeze until then. I’ll let you know how the cake turned out.