2 + 4 + 6 + 8 = The World’s Easiest Cake

Eaten any drupes lately? If you’ve nibbled on plums, cherries, almonds, mangos, pistachios or slurped down a cup of coffee, you’ve ingested drupes – defined as fleshy fruit with a stone pit.

For the World’s Easiest Cake, I like “drupaceous” plums. It’s not exactly the season yet for plums, so keep this recipe top of mind for summer.  I found plums at the grocery store from Chile. Not a very sustainable choice, but I had a craving, what can I say.

This is a cake recipe that you can easily memorize and make any time, anywhere. It doesn’t require special equipment or strange ingredients. It’s the type of recipe you can impress your friends with by saying you’ll just “whip something up” at the last minute.

I like to use olive oil instead of butter, but not one with a  strong flavor. If you get a definitive olive flavor when you taste the batter, add a teaspoon of vanilla extract and all will be well. The cake has a spongy, moist texture and the fruit becomes soft, like in a fruit tart. Good vanilla yogurt (I use low fat, not non fat) served alongside is perfect, even better than ice cream with this cake (I know, hard to believe).

Plum Cake
- makes one 9-inch cake, serves about 6 -

2 eggs, beaten
4T oil/melted butter
6T sugar
8T flour
1 tsp baking powder
Vanilla extract, optional
1-2 ripe plums or other stone fruit
Vanilla yogurt, for serving

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. With a whisk, mix oil and sugar into the beaten eggs until frothy. Add flour and baking powder and mix in, making sure there are no lumps. Add a teaspoon of vanilla if you want it.

Grease and flour a 9” cake pan. Cut plums into quarters, remove seed and any hard bits. Place pieces of plum face down in regular intervals in the cake pan. Pour batter over plums.  Bake until edges are slightly brown and cake springs back at your touch, approximately 20-30 minutes.

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