Forager’s Cake (or an Easy Peasy Basic Cake Recipe)

After our foraging with kids this week, we now have lots of plums and blackberries. I put the blackberries in the freezer for some tasty recipes to come. The plums are still a tiny bit unripe – we will ripen some at home.. but they are also ideal for this super simple cake.

plum cake

Note: our cake is quite tart – and the sweetness of the cake depends on the ripeness of the fruit. You can sprinkle additional sugar if needed. Red Ted loves both sides of the cake. Pip Squeak prefers the sweeter Blackberries.

It is a recipe from Austria where it is called “Equal Weight Cake”. It is great, as it uses what you have at home. And you can basically add any fruit you want on the top. Usually, we make this with thinly sliced apples from my friend’s garden. It is also lovely with apricots and red currents. The cake base is quite sweet, so a sharp fruit is a nice contrast.

Another perfect recipe for baking with kids, as it is easy to remember. And you literally “bung” it all in a bowl and mix with a hand mixer.

Ingredients:

  • 3 or 4 eggs (we used 3)
  • WEIGH your eggs.. and this weight will determine how much of the other ingredients you will need
  • Plain Flour
  • Sugar
  • Butter (best at room temperature)
  • Fresh fruit to go on top. We had tart Damson plums and blackberries from our foraging.
  • Preheat the oven to 180C

  • Baking tray, for 3 eggs we used a smaller one that is 30cm x 20cm x 5 cm deep (12″ x 8″ x 2″). If you use 4 eggs, you can use a larger baking tray.
  • Baking paper

In our case we used approx. 175g of each. I confess, to adding a little flower and keeping a little of the sugar back to sprinkle on top of the sharp fruit.

Method

What my son make it here (or follow the instructions below)

 

  1. Put all your cake ingredients into a bowl Β and mix with a blender
  2. The dough will be quite thick
  3. Put into a baking TRAY lined with baking paper. It is hard to spread as Β so thick. We used a fork and that worked well. The mixture will look quite “little”, but that is fine. It is a flat cake and the eggs in it will bring to rise.
  4. Cut your fruit and place on top. We put plum halves on one end and blackberries at the other. Make sure you pack the fruit tightly. The fruit help lock the moisture in. Too many gaps and the cake will come out quite dry.
  5. Bake in the oven for approx. 30min. But do keep checking. The cake should be a golden brown.

Enjoy! Another successful baking with kids ession!

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