Late Summer Plum Cake
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Gently spiced, this jammy plum cake celebrates the summer-into-fall season. Serve it as a brunch cake or for dessert topped with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Taking a cue from Martha Stewart’s fresh strawberry cake—a favorite on this site—this plum cake is the perfect dessert for late summer, when plums are at their prime. Gently tucked into the batter, the plums turn into rich, jammy pockets as they bake. And a touch of warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom give the cake a hint of cozy fall flavors. You can enjoy this dessert any time of day—plain and simple, or with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
What you’ll need to make Plum Cake
Step-By-Step Instructions
Begin by whisking the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, and salt together in a large bowl.
Next, beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy.
Add the egg and vanilla and mix to combine.
Gradually add the flour mixture, alternating with the milk, and beat on low speed until smooth.
Transfer the batter to a greased Springform pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula. Note that the batter is quite thick.
Arrange the plums on top, skin side up, in a circular pattern so that they cover most of the batter.
Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar over the plums.
Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until golden on top and set in the center.
When the cake is hot out of the oven, run a knife around the edges of the pan and then remove the springform edge (leave the base in place). Let the cake cool on a rack completely.
Slice and serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream, if desired.
You may also Like
- Fresh Peach Cake with Pecan Streusel
- Summer Strawberry Cake
- Blueberry Coffee Cake (aka Boy Bait)
- Plum Galette
Late Summer Plum Cake
Gently spiced, this jammy plum cake celebrates the summer-into-fall season. Serve it as a brunch cake or for dessert topped with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Ingredients
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- ⅛ teaspoon cardamom
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 8 tablespoons (½ cup) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for greasing the pan
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup milk (low-fat is fine)
- 1 pound plums, pitted and quartered
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F and set an oven rack in the middle position. Grease a 9-inch springform pan. (Alternatively, the cake may be made in a 9-inch cake pan or pie pan and served directly from the pan.)
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, and salt.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or beaters, cream the butter and 1 cup of the sugar until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat on low speed until well combined. Gradually add the flour mixture, alternating with the milk, and beat on low speed until smooth. (Note: the batter will be quite thick.)
- Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula. Arrange the plums on top, skin side up, in a circular pattern so that they mostly cover the batter. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar over the plums.
- Bake for 60 to 70 minutes, until golden on top and set in the center.
- When the cake is hot out of the oven, run a knife around the edges of the pan and then remove the springform edge, leaving the base in place (if using a springform pan). Let the cake cool on a rack completely. Slice and serve with ice cream or whipped cream, if desired.
- Note: This cake keeps well, loosely covered at room temperature, for several days.
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions: The cake can be frozen for up to 3 months. After it is completely cooled, double-wrap it securely with aluminum foil or plastic freezer wrap, or place it in heavy-duty freezer bag. Thaw overnight on the countertop before serving.
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (8 servings)
- Calories: 344
- Fat: 13g
- Saturated fat: 8g
- Carbohydrates: 54g
- Sugar: 35g
- Fiber: 2g
- Protein: 4g
- Sodium: 231mg
- Cholesterol: 55mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Faultless, completely reliable recipe! Count on it to always turn out satisfyingly great, in looks, sweetness, taste, and crumb.
Lovely! The sweet cake combined with the tartness of the plums was an excellent combination and very moist! I added a little bit of chopped apple too and a little extra cinnamon! Thanks for a great recipe!
Hi this cake tasted absolutely lovely. However the plums ended up at the bottom of the cake! Any ideas why?
Hi, Sorry to hear they sunk! Next time I’d cut them into slightly smaller pieces.
Holy moly that cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg combo is tasty.
Perfect recipe! I tried a couple changes after my first attempt and personal preferences including:
– Trading 1/2 a cup of the flour ingredient for a 1/2 cup of almond flour
– Using vanilla almond milk instead of regular milk + vanilla extract ingredients
– Used only 2/3 cup of sugar.
Turned out amazing! This is about to be a regular recipe for me 🙂 Thank you!
Holy moly this was good. I like simple, but I err on the side of elaborate (and almost always with chocolate). However, I had some CSA plums to use up and this was quick enough to pull together before some last minute brunch guests arrived. Wow! It was stunning, if that’s a word you can use for how this tasted. Not overly rich or indulgent but deeply satisfying. Of course, we served it with big dollops of whipped cream. A definite keeper.
Everybody enjoyed this delicious cake. Thanks!
I’ve made this at least 6 times this summer! Easy, tasty, and very popular with friends and family. Somebody even requested it for their birthday cake! The one thing I would say is that (at least for where I live and the oven I use) I knew 70 minutes would be way too long, so I started with 50 and that ended up being perfect. And I added almond extract inspired by another plum recipe I saw and given that it’s popular with my family. Thanks so much for sharing! That tart sweetness of the plums is perfect with the spiced cake but I’m sure I’ll try it with some other fruit as well.
Super easy to make with the surplus of prune plums from our CSA and yummy for breakfast coffee cake. My only note is that I did add the 2 tbsp of sugar on top because my plums aren’t super sweet, but it seemed like a LOT and formed a definite crunchy topping. May leave that off next time or use half.
Oh my goodness!! I always hesitate to sacrifice my favorite pit fruits to baking instead of eating fresh, but this recipe was 100% worth it. Loved the light hint of cardamom and other warm spices, enhancing the sweet jammy plum flavor without overpowering it. Easy, fruity, delicious. We served with ice cream for dessert but it was just as delicious the next late morning with our coffee. Thank you Jenn! We loved this one even more than the strawberry version.
Hi Jen
Can this cake be frozen before baking?
Unfortunately not (but you can freeze it after baking).
Obsessed with this cake! It’s so simple and amazing!
Hi there I made this cake Having a surplus of Victoria plums from Borough market. It was delicious but it didn’t look like the picture or video.! I’m wondering if the quants from cups to Metric we’re re a bit out. There’s quite a lot of sugar for the amount of flour so I reduced that. Also I found a 20 inch springform was the right size as 23 Inc would’ve been a quite a small flattish cake. I shall definitely make it again and use this website.
Sorry you had a bit of a problem with this, Anne! I just reviewed the conversions to metric and made the slightest tweak to the weight of the flour (added 5 grams), but other than that it checks out. Glad you enjoyed it nevertheless. 🙂
Hi Jen,
Made this cake this morning. The house smells wonderful! Of course my husband & I tried a still warm piece—DELICIOUS! Thank you Jen!
😊 Mary
Jenn, Fantastic recipe; thank you.
I am fortunare to have a plum tree, so it was a delicious way use plums. Turned out perfect. I used heavy whipping cream instead of milk and used salted butter because that’s all I had. Omitted other salt in the recipe. It was a hit among friends; def keeper. Cheers.
Made this Plum Cake recipe yesterday and it was excellent! I used Italian plums halves to cover the cake. Came out amazing and was gone super quickly! Went out and bought more plums today to make another one! A keeper!!!
We just moved and got Italian Plums in our first local farmers market pick up box, and I found this recipe for using them. I haven’t unpacked the springform pans yet so I used a 9” layer cake pan and it came out perfectly. Love the recipe!
We have a bumper crop of plums this year and I decided to look for a recipe for a plum dessert. We’ve just taken the cake out of the oven and had a slice. This cake is absolutely delicious! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe.
Awesome cake. So easy. So moist.
Another winner from Jenn!! In my opinion, the ingredients that make this cake so delicious are butter and the combination of spices. Butter makes the cake tender and fine textured. Cardamon is one of my all-time favorite spices. The spice combination is perfect. I used a glass 9″x 9″ square pan instead of the spring-form pan. A scoop of vanilla ice cream on top made a delicious dessert. I think this cake would be delicious using peaches in place of the plums.
My kids and I didn’t think you could do better than the strawberry cake but this plum cake is amazing! The combination of the warm spices and the jammy plums was just divine. I made this in a ceramic pie dish and it came out perfect. Good vanilla ice cream was an awesome addition at the end. This is a definite keeper!
I brought this cake over to my MILs and they loved it, with or without whipped cream! I already have people asking me for this recipe.
Delicious and so easy!
Amazing cake – but I felt as if I did something wrong? 175 deg (metric) in the middle shelf. But the cake was done after 35 min, not 60 minutes?! But delicious nonetheless 🙂
Or is it because I used damsons and not your normal plums? And damsons tend to be drier…
While they might lead to a slightly drier cake, I don’t think it would cause it to bake so much faster.
Loved the cake! I am going to slice and freeze several plums so I can make this cake again at a later date.
Question- should I defrost plum before making cake or can I bake the cake with the frozen plum slices? Thank you!!
So glad you like it! I think you can add the plums while they’re still frozen.
So strange, but glad you kept a close eye on it so it didn’t overbake! Also, you may want to check your oven temp to see if it’s accurate. Here are some tips on how to do it.
Made this tonight for the first time – family raved about it. I didn’t add the sugar on top of the cake – instead I dusted it with confectioners sugar after it had cooled. It was still a bit sweet for me and will cut the sugar by a third next time I make it. As usual, a foolproof recipe from @onceuponachef. Thanks!
We have a plum tree that produces tons of small plums which makes dicing them a time consuming process, but worth it. Last year I tried your plum galette which was wonderful, but I think I’ll use this year’s bounty for this cake! I used 4/7/9″ springfoam pans after doubling the recipe and now have a perfect variety to freeze and pull out depending on my number of guests. The cake was delicious!
This is, hands down, the BEST cake I have EVER baked. I’m normally a chocolate lover and have never really been into desserts where fruit is the main focus, while my partner is a big pie lover. This cake is truly the best of both worlds: cake + pie! He said to me as we were finishing it off, “I want this for my birthday next year.” (And I do, too!) I’ve been raving about this recipe to anyone who will listen since I baked it a few days ago. Thank you SO MUCH for another A+++++++ recipe!!!
One question for you: do you think you could sub blackberries in for the plums? I have a friend who doesn’t love plums but loves blackberries and was wondering about using those instead.
Glad it was such a hit! I haven’t tried this with blackberries (and there’s always a bit of trial and error when swapping fruit due to the level of sweetness and amount of juice different fruits produce), but I suspect it should work. Please LMK how it turns out if you try it!
This cake is delicious & is a keeper. We loved it.
This was SOOOOO good! My family loved it! I am so glad I found your site!
Made it this late summer with Methley plums. It is a keeper. The aroma of combination spices! Why not call it ‘Late Summer Plum Buckle’.
This was amazing. Just the right amount of sweetness and spices. Such a lovely cake for the end of summer and super easy too. I will definitely make this again.
Really good. Even when you screw up a bit! I’m anxious to try it exactly as written, which is what I thought I was doing. I was ready to put the batter in the pan and I read the note “Batter will be very thick.” I thought “hmmm. This batter isn’t that thick.” Then I got a sinking feeling. Rereading the directions, I realized that I accidentally put in 1 cup of milk instead of 1/2 cup.
Baked it anyway thinking “well maybe it will be like a pudding cake”. Came out delicious. A friends comment was “whatever you did wrong, you should do it again because this is great.”
So, I’m sure it’s great as written but it’s such a good recipe that it is forgiving if you screw up a bit.
OMG..made this plum cake last weekend and it was terrific. Followed the recipe except cut the plums into 8’s as another reviewer did. My husband (who prefers cake with icing) had a 2nd piece and also shared with friends who now are following you. I have your book and have made many of the recipes to rave reviews! Love following you, Thank you.
I make your fresh strawberry cake very often and get raves every time. Can I make this plum cake in the same dish that you recommend for the strawberry cake or do I need a springform pan?
Sure, this would work fine in the same dish you’ve used for the strawberry cake. Hope you enjoy!
Hi Jenn, I have some beautiful Italian plums and would love to make this. Are any changes to the recipe needed for use in a bundt pan?
Thank you for sharing!
Hi Hil, I wouldn’t recommend a bundt pan here; I’d be concerned it would stick. Sorry!
This is a delicious and easy summer cake taking advantage of fresh plums. It was a big hit at my house, especially with vanilla ice cream.
I found out this website while I was searching for a moist and with a rich taste marble cake. I found your recipe and I tried your bundt marble cake. I was amazed! Then I baked the carrot cake and the apple one you learned in France and finally yesterday evening I tried this one with plums. I’m from Italy and I thought we had the best cuisine in the world but I was wrong. I’ve eaten the most beautiful cakes here in US just because I found you! You’re a great chef! Love your style: less is more. Always 😉
So glad you like the recipes! ❤️
Made this cake this saturday morning for the sunday breakfast….. my family tried it and no piece was left for sunday morning! It´s absolutly delicious and a new addition to my cake list!
This was so easy to make and tasted great. A perfect light desert for summer.
Fantastic! I thought you couldn’t better your peach cake with pecan streusel, but you did! A definite keeper and so easy to make. You help me to look like a great cook.
This cake, as everyone else has said, Is absolutely delicious as is. Getting ready to make three more of them right now to hand out to my neighbors. I can’t get enough! Can’t wait to try your other recipes either. Well done!
I liked the ingredients and the way everything was explained, but I found the cake to be way too dense, and too much cake to fruit ratio. I ended up cutting the top half off to eat that part (which contained fruit and cake) and threw away the bottom half (which was all cake.)
Yummy! Followed the recipe to a “T”. Will make again!
Fabulous cake and so easy to make. I mixed up the dry ingredients and softened the butter with the sugar overnight. Everything was ready for me to get a quick start this morning and 65 minutes in the oven, it was done. Everyone in my house loved it!
I made this recipe, substituted the sugar for erythritol, and it came out beautifully! It’s really great when a recipe works with sugar substitutes.
This is my go to recipe when the Italian Prunes make their entrance. It is delicious just as written. I have been making this for a number of years and everyone I serve to loves it. It’s beautiful when it is baked the only change I make is the sprinkle 2 tablespoons of raw sugar on the top instead of using the plain sugar. Gives the cake a little sparkle.
Typo alert !
Transfer the batter to a greased Springform pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula. Note that the batter is quick thick.
Thanks so much for pointing that out – I just fixed it – it takes a village! 🙂
I made this cake today. Very tasty! It came out exactly as on Jennifer’s photo. My butter was very soft so I needed more flour. But I added almond flour instead.
The cake is very light! I will be making it all the time! Thank you!
As per usual, Jenn’s Summer Plum Cake is spot on. Moist, just the right amount of sweetness, and with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, over the top. Soooooo delicious!
This is so easy and wonderful. Thanks
Hello Jennifer,
Can you replace the flour with almond flour? I would like to make this dessert but my company will not touch a cake unless almond or other kind of flour.
Thanks
Debora
Hi Debora, I don’t think this will translate well to all almond flour. You could try subbing out a small portion of the all-purpose flour with it, but I can’t say for sure how it will impact the texture. You can find more information about alternative flours here. Hope that helps!
We had a nice crop of plums this year and as those of you who have trees know, they ripen pretty much all at the same time. The question always is the same. What to do with our plums? We made this super easy Plum cake. Jen’s instructions were easy to follow and we feel it turned out great. It was beautiful as well as delicious. It received rave comments from friends and family. This is now our new go-to plum cake! Five star ❣️⭐️
My family enjoyed this cake with vanilla ice cream. One of my guest mentioned that it brought back memories of his grandmother’s recipe! I will make it again when I have some nice ripe plums.
I made this summer plum cake yesterday and it turned out delicious. The only thing different I did was slice the plum in eights rather than quarter them. I felt the plums quartered were too large.
Hello. I Made your delicious recipe.
But my Plum cake had a soggy Bottom ! I was thinking shall i use parchment paper and bake one rung down in my oven ? Plus I prefer using grams or ounces when weighing my flour and sugar. ( Butter is very standard ) But flour and sugar weight is not. Would you please convert your unbleached flour measure and cake flour and sugar measure to Your recipes standard. !! I would soo Appreciate
The Clarification. So frustrating when using good ingredients and time and effort and the end product ends up gooey or dry or soggy. And trash bound !!! Thanks 😊
So sorry you had a problem with this, Dawn! The majority of my recipes actually do have conversions to weight/metric measurements. To view them, scroll down to the recipe and immediately under the recipe title on the right side, you’ll see a little toggle. If you move it from “cup measures” to metric, you’ll see measurements that will work for you. Hope you have better luck if you try this again!!