Plum Torte

The plums are ripe. I've been waiting three years for our Green Gage plum tree to produce its first crop - and it finally does so, while we are on vacation. Ha!

It's hard to find good plums these days. In the grocery store, they're usually watery and bland, with very sour/bitter skins. Even at the farmers' market, I've bought beautiful tiny red plums that just aren't that sweet. But these, ooooh, they are perfect. Rich and sweet, with just enough tartness.

I've been trying to re-create this plum pie/cake that I had once, a long time ago, in the first university laboratory I ever worked in, right after high school. This wonderful professor took our whole group backpacking (even the foreign students, who had probably never done anything like that in their lives!) And she made this plum pie that I never forgot, with small oval Italian prune-type plums from the tree in her backyard. It was amazing. And I finally discovered that it was simply this, the New York Times plum torte recipe that has been published every year since 1983.

1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
12 plums, cut in half
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix flour, salt and baking powder thoroughly. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Stir in the eggs, then the flour mixture. Grease and flour a pie plate, then spread batter in the bottom. Arrange plum halves on top in a single layer. Sprinkle with sugar, and cinnamon if desired. Bake 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.