Plum Coffee Cake with Streusel Topping
This delicious plum coffee cake has a tender cake base, fresh and juicy plums, topped with crispy streusel. The cake base is a simple pound cake, which couldn’t be easier to make!
Yield: 12 servings (10-inch/26cm cake pan)
Ingredients
Cake base:
- 1 stick (114 g) butter, softened
- 1/2 cup (114 g) sugar (or weight of 2 eggs with shell)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 pinch salt
- 2 eggs, at room temperature (large eggs in the US, medium in Europe; 1 egg weighs 57 g including shell)
- 1 scant cup (114 g) all-purpose flour (or weight of 2 eggs with shell)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
Plums:
- 12 oz /350 g small plums/prunes (like damsons or Italian/European plums; use up to 1 pound for an extra fruity cake)
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons sugar (optional)
Streusel topping*:
- 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (75 g) all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup (75 g) ground walnuts/walnut meal (other ground nuts or almond meal work well too)
- 4 tablespoons (55 g) brown sugar (coarse brown sugar like demerera or turbinado makes for a crunchy topping)
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
- 5 ½ tablespoons (75g) butter, softened
For serving:
- Vanilla ice cream (optional)
Instructions
Prepare:
- Remove eggs and butter (for cake and streusel) from the fridge to soften.
- Wash plums, let them drain, remove pits and cut them into quarters. If using large plums, cut into sixths or eights. Set aside.
- Line an 10-inch (26 cm) cake pan or springform pan with parchment paper or grease with butter (use some of the softened butter from the cake batter for this).
Streusel topping:
- Combine flour, ground walnuts, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl.
- Rub softened butter into this mixture of dry ingredients – start with a spoon first and then use your fingers until the mixture resembles cookie dough. Put the bowl in the fridge for streusel topping to firm up a bit, which makes it easier to distribute later.
Cake base:
- Weigh the eggs in their shell, and then use the same weight of sugar, butter, and flour for the cake - or simply use the amounts in the ingredients list.
- Briefly cream softened butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt with a hand- or standmixer. Add eggs one at a time and beat until creamy, about 3 minutes.
- Add flour and baking powder, briefly mix with your fingers until baking powder is combined with the flour. Mix in flour with the mixer until combined. Transfer the batter to the prepared cake pan and smooth the batter with a spatula.
Assemble:
- Distribute sliced plums on the cake batter. Leave a 1/4 –inch rim around the edges for an easy removal of the cake from the pan later (the plums get syrupy and otherwise stick to the pan or baking paper). Dust plums with a fine layer of cinnamon (about ¼ teaspoon). Optional, for extra sweet plums: sprinkle plums with 2 teaspoons sugar. Preheat oven to 350 °F (175 °C)
- Top the plums evenly with crumbled streusel topping. Bake for about 45 minutes until streusel topping is golden.
- Serve slightly warm or cold. The plum cake tastes great with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. It keeps well for a few days in the refrigerator.
Notes
* Streusel topping: The recipe yields a thick streusel layer. If you prefer a subtle streusel layer, you can cut the streusel ingredients in half. But why would you ;-)