Welcome to another delicious edition of Tuesdays With Dorie: Baking With Julia!

Marlise of The Double Trouble Kitchen and Susan of The Little French Bakery are our hosts this week!

I am wondering when the temps will finally break around here! For many reasons I had to make this cake today, in 100 degree weather and I will mention it again…with no AC, ack!

I seriously thought I was going to melt into a puddle on the kitchen floor. I half expected this cake to not do a thing due to the heat and humidity. I was happily surprised.

While I really wanted to make this a Nectarine cake, as life would have it here in Japan, I had to make a substitution this time to be able to participate as Nectarines were not to be found sadly. I went with plums, yes..plums!

It was a much bigger process making this cake than I had hoped for, only because of the heat really. It’s not that it was hard, not at all really. I read the Q&A on the site and hoped it all worked out!

Now, I made mine in a 8-inch spring-form pan. 10-inches seemed a little huge when there is only 2 of us here and I was not going to be sending it into work with hubby this time. I was worried about how much batter to use in the pan. I guessed. I guess about how much streusel to use too, apparently I did not use enough of that as you can not see it in the picture.

I did not have as many plums as I would have liked to line the pan with, the thing is they were SUPER expensive, about $7-$8 USD for 2 tiny ones and 2 medium sized ones. I have to buy fruits and veggies from the local Japanese grocery stores as the produce we get here on base is not good and a waste of my money to purchase.

It was really hard to know how long to bake it for, so I started with 50 minutes as remember I was using an 8-inch pan instead of 10. I checked at 50 and it still had a little jiggle, but it was nice and dark on the top. I checked it at 60 minutes and it was just perfect.

It was fairly easy to release after 30 minutes of cooling, I would recommend letting cool even a little longer before releasing. It will fall, quite a bit as it rests. You would think it would not by baking so high, but it really is a moist cake!

It really is a pretty cake with the fruit and all gooey, yumminess on top! Both my husband and I really enjoyed it. It has a wonderful flavor to it, it is very sweet, very sweet! It is light, airy and a small slice is more than enough! While eating it my husband and I talked about how it would be awesome to try apples in it next time. This recipe is a keeper.

If you would like the recipe, please visit our hosts! Or, you can purchase the book “Baking With Julia“.