Cherry Plum Tea Cakes
Cherry Plum Tea Cakes
my go-to cake recipe for summer fruits
It’s been an odd summer in upstate New York, starting out with possibly drought conditions in spring. The weather took a dramatic turn, and July turned out to be riddled with storms, three power outages, and in the last week, some parts of the Hudson Valley have seen a month’s worth of rain in one week.
While the calendar doesn’t officially change to the end of summer for another month, I’m rather happy to welcome the unofficial end of it. The summer school break is unbearably long, and I’m looking forward to getting back into school year routines. I think even Virginia is since she asked me a week ago how much longer until school begins. Being a teenager in a rural area makes for a very boring 11 weeks off. She doesn’t love school but she does appreciate the routine of it.
I start some much needed time off from work middle of this week (two whole weeks!), and then next Saturday we’re heading to the Cape. It’s been four years since we’ve been there this time of year, and there’s something really special about ending the summer there. A moment to slow down and recharge before diving back into routines.
Since we’re leaving in a week, I’ve pulled back on grocery shopping and started the process of cooking up everything in the fridge so nothing goes to waste. Last weekend I went a bit crazy, crushing hard on all the beautiful fruit at the farmstand. Before I could manage any self control, my basket was filled with cherries, red plums, Italian plums, cantaloupe, and nectarines.
The cantaloupe was candy-sweet, and went quickly with juicy wedges wrapped in paper thin prosciutto. There were lots of fruit salads this week, with a mix of all the fruits tossed with some fresh squeezed lime, fresh mint leaves and a swirl of honey. And then came these tea cakes, a spin on an old recipe, a distant memory from lots of time spent in France.
The original recipe was a plain but lovely cake, from an old magazine clipping decades ago. The cake uses egg whites only, with the yolks reserved to make a creme anglaise to serve with the cake. I’ve taken liberties and use the cake as a base now for whatever summer fruit is in season. I need to branch out into using fall fruits, and think it would be lovely with pears. Apples, I suspect, would need to be cooked down a little on the stove top if using for these cakes.
They make for a not too sweet breakfast treat, and are also a light dessert if you’re craving something not too heavy at the end of a meal. You could serve them with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar, some fresh whipped cream, and I suppose even a creme anglaise for an extra special treat.
Hope the week is a gentle one, filled with some moments of peace. Be well, and remember to be kind. —xo, j.
The recipe related to this post is available for paid subscribers only. Join hundreds of other subscribers now for only $5/month or $30/year (that’s six months free!). Specialty e-cookbooks are an additional benefit of paid membership at no extra cost.