My Obsession With Olive Oil Plum Cake

Or nectarine or apricot or peach or...

Welcome to a recipe post for paid subscribers! This cake is so elegant and easy that I make it multiple times a year, during plum season and not. Next Tuesday, all subscribers will receive a photo essay that celebrates the artichoke. As always, check out my past posts here and learn more about my day job here. Thanks for reading!

I think by now you know how much I love a simple, fruit-forward cake (see: blueberry citrus cake, one of the most popular recipes I’ve ever posted as Exhibit A). My ultimate dessert is actually breakfast, and it’s a olive oil-based, ricotta enriched batter studded with seasonal fruit. It goes with coffee like they were meant to be together. It bakes up in an hour. You don’t even have to peel the fruit. Are you sold yet?

I’m sorry, is this not the most beautiful cake you’ve ever seen? Look at how gorgeous the crumb is. Look how the batter is gently cradling the plum, whose flavor has been gently coaxed from its jewel-colored skin! Look how juicy that plum has gotten, staining the batter with flavor and color. I simply…would like to live this picture, with a large cup of coffee at my side.

Tips

• You don’t need to use your best olive oil for baking, but you also shouldn’t use the crappy stuff. Just like wine, you should never cook or bake with olive oil you wouldn’t take a sip of outside of a recipe. Of course, you can substitute in another neutral oil, but I love the flavor that the olive oil adds to this beautiful cake.

• This recipe doesn’t only work with plums. I’ve also successfully used peaches and apricots, and I have a suspicion that pears would be lovely as well. For the cake pictured, I mixed black plums and yellow plums, which made things look a bit lopsided but worked beautifully in terms of flavor.

• I am of the opinion that this cake would also benefit from a glug of high-quality vanilla paste or a sprinkle of ground nutmeg. However, in the interest of keeping things as simple as possible, this recipe does not include any of those things. Choose your own adventure!

Olive Oil Plum Cake