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• A very small amount of batter. 150 g of flour for a 23 cm tin. The fruit is the cake; the batter is a raft.
• Italian prune plums specifically, if you can get them — they are dense, low-water and tart, and they collapse into something jammy rather than watery. Other plums work with a spoonful of flour tossed through them.
• Cut side up, pressed in lightly. The halves sink on their own. Skin down keeps the juice in.
• Sugar and cinnamon over the top before baking, which draws juice to the surface and glazes it.
• Springform, and serve from the base. The fruit makes it too soft to move cleanly.

One 23 cm springform. Serves 8.

• 115 g unsalted butter, softened
• 150 g granulated sugar
• 150 g all-purpose flour
• 5 g baking powder
• 3 g fine salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla — see Pure vanilla extract
• 12 Italian prune plums, halved and stoned
• 2 tbsp granulated sugar and 5 g cinnamon, mixed, for the top
• juice of half a lemon

Heat the oven to 175 °C / 350 °F. Butter a 23 cm springform.

Cream the butter and sugar three minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Fold in the flour, baking powder and salt.

Spread the batter in the tin — it will be a thin layer, about 1.5 cm, and that is correct.

Arrange the plum halves skin-side down, cut side up, over the whole surface, packed close. Squeeze the lemon juice over and scatter the cinnamon sugar.

Bake 45–50 minutes, until the cake is golden and a skewer between the fruit comes out clean.

Cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature, with cream.

• Freezes exceptionally well, baked, wrapped in foil. Reheat at 150 °C for 20 minutes. Burros's readers froze them in September and ate them in January, which is a large part of why the recipe is famous.
• Apricots, cherries, damsons, rhubarb or sliced apple all work — see Apricot, Cherry, Rhubarb and apple.
• Keeps three days covered at room temperature.

Method and theory: Cake recipes · cakes · plums

Nearby: pineapple upside-down cake · crumb cake · olive oil cake