Wocka Wocka Plumcot Yogurt Cake
It’s time for summer cakes! The cakes of summer, much like the boys of summer, aren’t that filling but are fruity and they live at your house for a week until you’re finally sick of them and then they get chopped up and put in trash bags. So named for the sound of Pacman, the Wocka Wocka Plumcot Yogurt Cake is verrrrryyyy loosely adapted from a plum cake by Nigel Slater. This is my standard summer cake, and it’s fantastic, if I do say so myself. I would know, I’m eating it right now. There’s just 12 easy steps!
1. Take butter out of fridge so it gets warm. Two “sticks” or one “big stick.” This is important!
2. Meanwhile, grind two handfuls of almonds in your coffee grinder or whatever, until it’s all powder.
3. Beat about 1 and a ½ of those sticks of butter, once they’re not cold, with about a cup of muscovado or brown sugar or light brown sugar or even white sugar, in that order of preference. Or you can mix and match! This is why your butter isn’t cold, so it gets all fluffy with the sugar. You can literally beat this forever basically.
4. Beat in three eggs and some vanilla. (Don’t beat this too long though.)
5. Take your ground almonds and whisk them in a bowl with a cup of flour and two teaspoons baking powder.
6. Incorporate your wet and dry ingredients!
7. And then add to the whole mess about one container of plain Old Chatham Sheepherding Company yogurt. (You may use other yogurts if you wish, I suppose, but there is no other yogurt for me.)
8. Assess your cake dough! Is it super-runny? Add more flour! Is it super-firm? Add more yogurt!
9. Have someone cut for you between 5 and 15 plumcots. (You can use plums, pluots or apricots! Or other larger stone fruits of the prunus genus! Maybe even cherries, but only if you have a cherry pitter.)
10. Cut them just in half, discarding, duh, the pits. (CAVEAT: if they’re particularly tart fruits, it’ll be a better eating experience if you cut them in slices actually. It’s rough going to stuff half a really tart baked fruit in your mouth. (I know.) So try one; they get tarter often when you cook, so err maybe on the side of smaller?)
11. Pour batter into springform pan, which you have buttered and also set a round slice of parchment paper on the bottom. Set halved plumcots face down all about the top, or slightly embed slices.
12. Put it in a 350° oven. Check after 30 minutes if your oven runs hot. Check after 40 otherwise. Often takes 50 minutes. Knife inserted in center should emerge clean. (Just like with the boys of summer.)
Also, if you want it to be Wocka Flocka Flame Plumcot Yogurt Cake, add about half a cup of booze of some sort, and maybe a little more flour to compensate. Maybe rum or brandy or something, I don’t know. Something not too overwhelming! Like, probably not schnapps, boozehound. Eat while wearing shorts.