TWD: Flip-Over Plum-Blueberry Cake

All right. I was a day late with my cake (and something like two weeks late with this post - camera issues!), but I did not want to miss out on this one. Becky of Project Domestication picked the Flip-Over Plum Cake for Tuesdays with Dorie. But I dawdled on picking up plums, so I made it late. But in this case, definitely better late than never.

I love prune plums and have used them in my all-time favorite plum torte many times. I learned a very important lesson this week: when the Mennonite guy at the farmer's market has perfect prune plums for sale, buy them, even if your plum cake assignment is a few weeks away. When you actually need them, they'll be gone. For this cake, I ended up using blah supermarket plums (and a handful of frozen blueberries to round things out), but the beauty of this cake is that you can use just about any fruit and the baking process will transform it into something spectacular.

What is a flip-over cake, you ask? Well, if you're familiar with a dump cake, you know what a flip-over cake is. In this recipe, you forgo cake mix and canned fruit salad for real ingredients. Surprise - it's practically as easy as the cake mix version my mother used to make. Melt a stick of butter in a Pyrex dish, pour a simple spiced batter on top, then add macerated fruit. In less than an hour, everything blends together magically and you have a cake dimpled with fruit on top. Mine was not pretty, but oh was it ever good.

In fact, before I could snap a picture, we all had tried it - and someone (possibly me) might have just nibbled at the edges with a fork. It was a bit sweet for my taste, though, and that's coming from someone with a sweet tooth. I'd probably reduce the sugar next time. And while I usually like to increase the spices in things, here I thought the cinnamon, coriander, and ginger were perfect.

Next week: Katrina of Baking and Boys chose Apple Nut Muffin Cake

Last week: Salt and Pepper Shortbread