Chocolate Plum Cake

Yield: 16 servings

I was gifted an oven for my birthday and wanted to try my first cake. Since Christmas was nearing, I opted for a plum cake.
When I searched for plum cake recipes, I came across the information that in olden days, they used dried plums or prunes for the plum cake or pudding.
Later the plums are replaced by raisins and dry fruits but the dishes retained the name 'plum' till now.
The traditional recipes for the plum cake use raisins and dry fruits soaked in red wine and rum for a period of one month.
I wanted to use fresh plums itself in the cake and to my surprise; the cake came out really well and tasty.



Ingredients :

All purpose flour / Maida - 1 cup
Butter - 150 gm
Powdered Sugar - 1 cup
Chocolate - 100 gm
Egg - 2
Cocoa powder - 1 tbsp
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Plum - 3 (finely chopped)
Instant Coffee powder - 1 tsp
Vanilla essence - 1 tsp
Salt - a pinch

Preparation:

Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl at room temperature, till it becomes fluffy.
Melt the chocolate in the oven at the highest temperature for about 2 - 3 minutes.
Now mix the melted chocolate into the butter mixture.
In a separate bowl, beat the eggs till it's fluffy.
Add vanilla essence and plums to it.
Pour the eggs into the butter mixture and mix well.
Sift the flour and baking powder. Add cocoa & instant coffee.
Preheat the oven at 180 C (356 F) for 15 minutes.
Fold the flour into the butter mixture gently.
Grease the baking pan with butter and dust with flour.
Pour the cake mixture into the pan and bake for 30 minutes.
Leave it to cool in the pan for some minutes & take it upside down in a plate.
Spread some melted chocolate over the top of the cake and serve.

As this was the first time, I just used melted chocolate for frosting. You can use chocolate with fresh cream or icing sugar with butter for decoration.

Refrigerate the cake for about 2 hours and serve.



Note:

Instant Coffee and Vanilla essence are optional.
Always sift the flour and baking powder to avoid lumps while folding.
You can also use tuity fruity with plums.



I have a simple oven, so I baked two cakes with this amount of ingredients. The taste of the plum cake was so tempting that the first cake soon vanished from the plate before the second cake was ready!!!

Try and send your opinion.