Quick plum and rosemary cake

Ingredients

50g butter
3/4 C caster sugar
zest of 1 lemon
sprig of rosemary leaves, finely chopped
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 C plain flour
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 C yoghurt
about 2 C fruit, halved or sliced

Summary

This here is a super quick and easy cake to bake with plums (or any stone fruit, apples, pears or berries).  Just whip up a batter, top with fruit and it’s cooling on a rack in 30 minutes, smelling divine.  Great with an afternoon cup of tea or for a quick desert with all the trimmings.  And get out your best cast iron pan or camping skillet because you can just bake it in that!

This recipe is quite literally scribbled on the back of an envelope and taped in to my little recipe book.  I’d jotted it down from a long forgotten blog years ago.  The page is well frequented (it’s next to a friend’s birthday carrot cake) as it’s the kind of adaptable and forgivable cake that I like with Summer fruit!  Alas I can’t recall its origins, though a quick google search revealed several similar recipes – perhaps by now we can just call it, as it is in my note book, ‘that skillet cake for fruit’.

Quick plum and rosemary skillet cake

Makes one 20cm cake.

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

Cream the butter and sugar until lightened and fluffier. Add lemon zest, rosemary, eggs and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients of flour, salt and baking powder, then gently mix it in to the batter, incorporating the yoghurt as you go.

Pour in to the greased skillet or pan, cover with fruit and sprinkle with a little brown sugar.

Bake for 30 minutes or until it’s browned and just cooked in the centre.

Leave the cake to cool in the pan before turning it out. Enjoy!