the big sleep
i never noticed that really ripe plums have a delicately lingering flowery aftertaste until recently. then the idea to make same sort of cake including plums and rose flower water popped into existence. and now that the plum season is finally over for this year i have enough time to write about it. but that's the way things go i guess. (or am i the only one to discover new and interesting recipes as soon as the fruit or vegetable in question is not available any more?)
anyway, the following recipe was adapted from a recipe in a baking book by dr. oetker.
plum tart
cake batter
- one heaping cup of flour
- two level teaspoons of baking powder
- one third of a cup of sugar
- three to four teaspoons of rose flower water
- one medium egg
- half a cup of ricotta cheese
- 6 tablespoons of milk or half and half
- 6 tablespoons of good quality vegetable oil or melted butter
for the pie pan
- flaked almonds
topping
- one and a half pounds of plums, halved and stoned
- 6 tablespoons of half and half
- 2 heaping tablespoons of ricotta cheese
- 2 heaping tablespoons of sour cream
- 2 tablespoons of honey
- one vanilla pod
- two medium eggs
mix all dry ingredients for the batter thoroughly then add the liquid ingredients. butter a pie pan and sprinkle with flaked almonds (the surface does not have to be completely covered). pour batter into pan.
arrange plum halves on batter (pieces must overlap or they won't fit into the pan).
scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod with a knife and add the remaining ingredients. pour over plums.
bake at 150 degrees centigrade for about 45 minutes.
the result was really pleasant (the slightly waxy flavour of the sage honey i used came out brilliantly) but there is still room for improvements. for example the vanilla taste could develop far better if you infused the half and half with the scraped vanilla pod. will definitely make this again though.
