Half Changed World

One of the tastes that has always meant fall for me is Marian Burros’ plum torte.  You can make it with regular plums, but it’s really meant to be made with the little Italian prune-plums, which are one of the few fruits that still seems to be seasonal — they’re only available in late August and September.  (And they seem to be much harder to find in the DC area than in New York — maybe because there’s not much of an Italian population here?)

The recipe appeared almost every year in the NY Times when I was growing up, until one year Burros finally wrote that this was the last time, and if you wanted it, you should cut it out for cripessake.  (The Times reprinted it again a year or two ago.)  It’s one of the few cakes I can remember my mother baking (she’s an excellent cook, but has never been particularly into baking) and one that I’ve made dozens of times.  It’s delicious, incredibly easy to make, and travels well, so it’s perfect for a potluck.

This summer, Cook’s Illustrated ran a recipe for a Rustic Plum Cake that is based on Burros’ recipe.  But they didn’t like the cake base, so added ground almonds (and reduced the butter slightly) and they poached the plums in a bit of jam.  Sounded interesting.  So when I saw a 5 pound box of Italian prune-plums at Costco last week, I knew what I was baking.

The Cook’s Illustrated version is good.  But I like the old version too.  I found the almond taste a bit overpowering — I think I might use the ground almonds, but pass on the almond extract.  And I don’t think the extra flavor of the cooked plums was enough to justify the extra effort, and additional dirty pot.

Either way, I don’t think you can go wrong.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 9th, 2007 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Food and Drink. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.