So many tasty fruits ripen in fall that it’s hard to choose just one – and I rarely do. A late flush of rhubarb usually appears in my garden just as the orchard’s apples begin to sweeten for Rhubarb-Apple Crisp. Some golden raspberry canes and everbearing strawberry plants produce a second round of fruit in fall for mixed-berry shortcake. Pears and plums add contrasting juices and textures to everything from muffins to turnovers to cake.
Most pear varieties ripen from the inside out. If you leave them to ripen on the tree, that process speeds up until the pears become grainy and brown at the core before their skin yellows and softens. So I harvest pears while they still look green and feel hard and then let them ripen in a box. By the time a few pears give slightly when I press gently next to their stem, the orchard’s Italian purple, or prune, plums are usually juicy, sweet and ready to be picked and baked into a fresh fruit cake.
Unlike a dense fruitcake dotted with dried and candied fruit, this cake has a light, spongy texture with fruit baked on top. Some of the juiciness can soak into the crumb, so a brown sugar topping helps the pear and plum juices caramelize and become syrupy rather than soggy. The flavor and texture improve even more a day after baking.
Fresh Pear and Plum Cake
Serves 10-12
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided
Pinch of sea salt
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk
Zest and juice of 1/2 small lemon
2 medium pears, unpeeled (about 1 cup sliced)
5 small Italian purple or other plums (about 1 cup pitted and sliced)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar for about seven minutes, until light and fluffy. Beat in one egg at a time. Whisk in the vanilla.
In alternating amounts, add the flour mixture and the milk to the butter mixture, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. Fold in the lemon zest.
Scrape the batter into a buttered 9-inch springform pan. Arrange the sliced pears and plums on top, overlapping and layering as needed. Gently press the fruit into batter. Sprinkle or mist with the lemon juice. Sprinkle on the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and then the brown sugar.
Place the pan on a baking sheet and slide both into a 350°F oven. Bake for about 50 minutes, until the top is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Cool the cake in its pan for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the edge, and then remove rim. Let the cake cool on the pan base on a wire rack before serving.
Julie Laing is a Bigfork-based cookbook author and food blogger. Learn more about this month’s dehydrating and freezing workshops at TwiceAsTasty.com.