Plum (or apple) cake

Baking is science, right?

That's why I am not a great baker. I like to throw ingredients into recipes in a haphazard way.

I always mean to follow recipes to the letter but sometimes I just find it kind of hard.

I'm also not organised about gathering recipes. So I would love to credit the blog where I found a recipe for a cake that kind of throws everything together and at the end you add milk, no quantity, until you've got a batter that drips off the beaters and a cake that works EVERY TIME!

But I can't because I copied it in note form and think it was when I was in Canada and I can't seem to find it now.

But thank you whoever you are because this cake works with many fruits and is a great way to use up apples or pears on the turn or simply when you spot a punnet of plums for £1 as I did the other day in Morrisons (yes Morrisons, my neareast supermarket).

This cake is virtually foolproof so try it.

I know it is a Northern American recipe as it uses cups. If you don't have any you could use the internet to convert I suppose but a my sister and son live over the pond I use cups a lot in recipes sourced from there.

Serve this warm as a dessert or it's lovely cold with a cup of tea.

Plum cake

About 500g of fruit (about two cups - in fact two cups of chopped plums was about 400g)

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup caster sugar or granulated (see what It mean? It's not a rigid recipe)

2 large eggs

6 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly (plus extra for greasing the pan)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons milk (or more “as necessary”)

Preheat oven to 160c fan or 170c. Chop fruit and mix in a little sugar to taste in a bowl. Apples often don't need much but my plums were tart so I added about 8tbsp.

In another bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.

Add eggs, melted butter, vanilla extract and beat with an electric mixer till smooth. This is when you can add the milk to ensure it has a thick but still drippy consistency.

Stir in fruit and put in a prepared greased and lined 8in square or round tin. You can sprinkle with demerara sugar if liked.

Bake for around 45 minutes until a skewer comes out clean. Again you could glaze with a honey glaze using two tbsp honey mixed with 1tbsp of hot water. Leave to cool on a wire rack.