This is a great cake for a bridal shower, baby shower, or tea party. It's light, fluffy, and not too sweet. The plums and lemon zest work very well together.
Not a whole lot of lemon flavor to the batter, so I added a little lemon extract in addition to the zest. The lemon flavor is still subtle, maybe adding a little lemon juice would help. I baked for the recommended 30 minutes, took out of the oven, and all of the plums which I'd put on the top of the batter had sunk into the batter...no visible plums. Since the cake had risen about all that I thought it would, I then redecorated with another plum, and put back into the oven to complete baking. The plums that sunk into the cake ended up making this very moist. And that's an unplanned good thing! Here's what I'll do the next time. Pour half of the batter into the pan, next a layer of plums, top with the rest of the batter, and bake for 30 minutes. Then remove from oven, decorate the top with another layer of plums, back into the oven, and check for doneness in 20 minutes (30-40 minutes more would have overcooked in my oven, so be safe and check at 20 minutes). I used only two plums and baked in an 8" spring form pan for presentation. On the positive side, the plums lend not only moisture, but a little tartness, and the bottom line is this is a nice cake. Sorry for the length of this review, but just wanted to explain what happened here because it turned out to be a winner.
Read More Not a whole lot of lemon flavor to the batter, so I added a little lemon extract in addition to the zest. The lemon flavor is still subtle, maybe adding a little lemon juice would help. I baked for the recommended 30 minutes, took out of the oven, and all of the plums which I'd put on the top of the batter had sunk into the batter...no visible plums. Since the cake had risen about all that I thought it would, I then redecorated with another plum, and put back into the oven to complete baking. The plums that sunk into the cake ended up making this very moist. And that's an unplanned good thing! Here's what I'll do the next time. Pour half of the batter into the pan, next a layer of plums, top with the rest of the batter, and bake for 30 minutes. Then remove from oven, decorate the top with another layer of plums, back into the oven, and check for doneness in 20 minutes (30-40 minutes more would have overcooked in my oven, so be safe and check at 20 minutes). I used only two plums and baked in an 8" spring form pan for presentation. On the positive side, the plums lend not only moisture, but a little tartness, and the bottom line is this is a nice cake. Sorry for the length of this review, but just wanted to explain what happened here because it turned out to be a winner.
We substituted Greek Yoghurt, and it worked out just fine. Gone in 3 days with 3 of us!