Recipe: Golden Syrup & Plum Cake

For some time I have wanted to create a non ginger, syrup based alternative to my Easy Peasy Ginger Cake, that was quick reliable and fool proof.   And baked entirely from the store cupboard, which meant no eggs & no milk.    I do have quite a good handle on eggless cakes, most of the time I just leave the eggs out and use oil in place of fat.        The first version of this cake was the basic ginger cake recipe, with syrup instead of the treacle and leaving all the spices out.   It was OK, but a little boring, and tasted heavily of the bicarb.

In this cake you can clearly taste the syrup, but the sweetness is balanced with a hint of lemon and the sourness of the plums.   I used Waitrose’s Wholefoods Plum Medley containing a mix of roysum and angelino plums; their cranberry and golden blush colours make the cake look more interesting.     Like the Easy Peasy Ginger Cake this is a whizz and go one step cake.

Recipe: Golden Syrup & Plum Cake

(makes 16 x 2” pieces)

350g Plain Flour
200g Sugar (I use soft dark brown for colour and flavour but any would work)
100g Cooking oil (Sunflower or rape/canola)
1tsp baking powder
Zest of 1 lemon
Pinch salt
About 120g Golden Syrup*
225ml boiling water

100g dried plums – cut into 1cm cubes.

Place all the ingredients apart from the plums into the food processor bowl and whizz until you have a smooth golden brown batter, add the chopped plums and pluse once or twice.  Pour into 8” square pan lined with greaseproof paper and bake at GM4/180C for about 35 – 40 mins until risen and a cocktail stick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

* the syrup is almost impossible to measure, the recipe is quite forgiving so I measured by eye, and dolloped just over 1/4 of the tin of syrup into the food processor bowl.