Hello all! I know, I know..it has been far too long since I last shared some baked goodies with you all, but I'm here now and I hope you like what I have to offer :)
This week I'm going to show you some sweet treats I made using a seasonal fruit for September- the Victoria plum. The Victoria plum is an English variety, with a sweet yellow flesh and light red-orange skin. As you may have already guessed, the name originates from Queen Victoria and the fruit was apparently introduced in the 1840's. The Victoria plum tree is very widely grown in many British gardens, including mine, as my Dad kindly received one as a gift last year! Unfortunately we lost all the plums last season due to some cheeky little squirrels but this year we got a full crop thanks to my Dad's clever netting around the tree. Although the plums were lovely and ripe, I found they were a little tart for my taste buds and I decided that they would be best used for cooking (or baking in my case!)
After making my plum slice, I had a go at a recipe for plum and almond cupcakes. However, instead of baking mine in a cupcake tin, I made mini loaf cakes instead as I decided that I don't use my individual loaf tins often enough! The recipes calls for ground almonds and cinnamon but I substituted the cinnamon for almond extract instead, as I love the marzipan-like flavour it gives. I sliced the plums and arranged them on the top of the cake mixture, then sprinkled them with flaked almonds and brown sugar to give a crunchy topping.
I thought my little bakes would make lovely gifts, so I packaged a few of them in cellophane bags tied up with pretty ribbon-simple but effective!
After my little baking session, I still found that I had a few leftover plums so I thought what better way to use them up than to make some jam! Cooking the fruit with the sugar turned the mixture into a wonderful orange-pink colour and really intensified the flavour of the plums.
