Plum Cake, hold the Kuchen

Someday I shall be brave enough to try making a baked good with yeast. Today is not that day.
This is the day I give you, plum cake.
First, the origins. There've been a bunch of recipes for plum kuchen floating about- and also, I found these at the farmers market:

and they were too cute to pass up.
Yes, that is excuse enough for cake.
Cute. Cake. Done.

So here we go:

Plum Cake

1.5 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 Stick (4 Tablespoons) Earth Balance
2/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup soy milk with 2 tsp lime juice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract

A pint of tiny plums! (you can use any plum. I used above tiny sugar plums)
(they were actually a little tart)
(I felt lied to)

Preheat over to 375° F
Grease/flour a round 9 inch cake pan.
If you haven't already, combine the 3/4 cup soy milk with the 2 tsp of lime juice. Give it a stir, and set it aside to separate.
In a mixer, or with a hand mixer, or with a fork and some bicep action, cream the Earth Balance on its own until whipped / paler in color.
Add the sugar and continue to beat for anywhere between 2 - 5 minutes, until throughly incorporated and pretty fluffy.
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a bowl.
In the mixer, or the bowl you've been buffing out that one arm with, add roughly a third of the soy milk mixture and the teaspoon of vanilla.
Add about a third of the dry ingredients to that and turn the mixer on low to just barely combine.
Repeat this until you've incorporated all the ingredients. You want to end with the dry ingredients, and take care not to over mix!
This will be a bit of a thick batter-it's okay, the plums are juicy. Pour it into your prepped cake pan.

As for the plums: Sometimes, there is a bit of bitterness in the skins. I find this to be a bit odd, sugar plums... Pop one in your mouth to verify if you too have this issue. You may want to take that extra step to peel them. If you don't peel them, it's not really a problem. It adds an interesting dimension to the sweet cake and the concentrated fruit. You're going to pit and halve your plums. Arrange them as you like on top of your cake batter and sprinkle with sugar.
Told you they were juicy.

Bake at 375° F for 30 - 35 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
Let the cake cool in the pan for about 10 minutes.

Then gently turn out onto a wire rack.

It looks like it's smiling, and yes, I tried a nub from the bottom. It was delicious.
You have successfully avoided making kuchen. You have not confronted your fear of yeast. You have passively aggressively (and 2nd person-edly) challenged yourself to make a risen baked product in the near future. (foreshadowing)

I mean, enjoy!


In the meantime, come visit us at Hungryface!