Plum Kuchen - Celebrating Friendship

 So... this recipe has been in my files for almost a year - when I first met my beautiful Argentinian friend, Fla, who I do love dearly - She and I work together on other stuff and hit it off from day one - Although we are both a bit feisty- she more than me - something clicks and I've enjoyed having her in my life - She brings with her a familiar warmth and affection - very typical of Indians - where we are not afraid to feel or show that we feel - she shares the same wonderfully close relationship with her family and children that most of us Indians tend to with ours and there was not a moment when we felt any awkwardness in the relationship -
She was supposed to be a guest on my blog and share with me some Italian/ Argentinian recipes - She is of Italian origin. But we've had a deadlock about the interview part - I did what I have done with my other interviewees - sent her questions to answer about herself - She does not type these out and send it to me, instead, in this day and age of technology, wants me to physically take notes and paraphrase for her - Now for people who blog, you know how much work even putting out a recipe with pictures is - I held my ground that her answers would b typed by her and sent to me and I would post verbatim - The deadlock continues, but I gave her the heads up about posting some of the recipes she made for me - The first of the recipes that I absolutely LOVED was this plum cake - for Kuchen is nothing but "cake" in German.
Today was to be a special occasion - You see, I have 3 Anitas in my life who have enriched it a lot - My "french" friend whom I've known for almost 10 years now, who is as I write, hanging in Melbourne (so jealous), - She also introduced me to Fla whose cake I blog today; my fabulous baker friend Anita Gupta who has been a guest on my blog whose website, Maliha Creations is a sight for sore eyes.  And the third Anita, a UVA grad (soon to be) who teaches Zumba at the university - My Tuesday and Thursday nights were my most anticipated because she as my daughter rightly wrote, set the floor on fire and gave us all the most fabulous workouts - She may think I'm way over the top in my adoration of her, but she is truly an inspiration and I do love her a whole lot!
This last one was the one who was to come over today and the cake was made in her honor - But being a busy student trying to wrap up her undergrad program, she had to bail out of coming today - I am saddened by the thought that she will no longer be teaching here :( - c'est la vie - all good things do come to an end, mostly...no? But I must make the cake again for when she comes over -

I also want to celebrate all the beautiful friends I have made since writing this blog - so many great women out there - I celebrate you today as well -

But my thoughts go back to Fla who is away in Arizona, to attend her son's graduation - So I am dedicating her cake to that special event in her life - And a friendly word to her - Get back soon, woman- we have work to do!  As for Zumba Anita, a fresh cake in your honor is being planned :)

Ingredients

½ cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup all purpose flour

1tsp baking powder

1 lb of red plums

Fresh lemon juice to squeeze over the cake before baking

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350

Butter a 9 inch pan (I used pyrex)

Cream butter and sugar

Add eggs 1 at a time

Then the flour with the baking powder

Mix until it s a creamy batter (don’t over mix)

Spread batter into the pan - NOTE - This batter is quite thick and will spread sort of thin in the pan

Cut the plums into halves or quarters depending on the size

Place them over the batter in rows

Sprinkle with 2 tbsp of sugar and add the lemon juice

Bake for 30 minutes on a regular oven not convection

Using pyrex glass can speed up the process

Do the toothpick check 

Enjoy mes amies, until the next post

This is off to BAKE FEST, Event hosted by me, started by Vardhini

Linking this to Divya's Showcase your dessert event