Peach and Plum Cake is so good

Wow, I'm just over the moon with the cake I made today. I am not so over the moon with how much of it I know I'm going to eat. We're already at 3 pieces today in lieu of dinner. It's based on Nigel Slater's recipe for a "wonderfully moist fresh plum cake," but of course I didn't quite have all the ingredients so I made up my own version, "Rabbit's Summer Stonefruit Cake".

Where I differed, and I think in a good way, was that I had 12 teeny tiny yellow plums (you know, from wild plum trees in your neighborhood) and 3 ripe yellow peaches. I chopped the peaches into pieces about the size of a quartered normal-sized plum and I quartered the teeny tiny plums. I left the skin on everything. I used 100 g regular caster sugar and 50g light brown muscovado sugar (superfine white sugar and light brown sugar, respectively). Instead of walnuts, I used pecans (I'm from Texas, I had a pecan tree in my backyard. Walnuts will always be bitter and not sweet like a pecan to me). But I have to say, I think you could leave out the walnuts or pecans and the recipe would be fine. I would not leave out the ground almonds, those are vital (ground hazelnuts or ground pecans might be nice alternatives, if they exist).

Using a convection oven at 160 C, it took the full 45 minutes to cook. The top gets very brown and the peaches & plums caramelize in a very pretty way. Check out my photos for the yumminess. The skins also hold a tart bite which contrasts well with the sweet cake. All the fruit inside is just what I want in a summertime cake. But I must hold off and won't have my 4th piece of cake until breakfast time tomorrow.

Serving-wise, if you are generous, this makes 9 portions of cake. It would look lovely at a picnic or more casual do. It doesn't hold together quite well enough to be eaten by hand, though I'm sure any cake lover would be happy to deal with that issue. For me, it definitely makes me think "yum, this is the essence of summer".