A few months back I treated myself to a copy of the National Trust cookbook. Adam and I had National Trust membership while we were living in England and I have so many fond memories of spending days exploring the Trust’s beautiful old houses and stunning gardens.
We hosted a group of friends this weekend gone for a summery barbecue and I turned to my National Trust cookbook for some seasonal inspiration when it came to dessert…
Flipping through the pages, the plum and vanilla slice caught my eye straight away. The recipe looked simple, yet decadent at the same time. From start to finished product it takes around one hour.
What you’ll need
- 140g self raising flour
- 115g light muscovado sugar
- 115g margarine
- 2 eggs
TOPPING
- 115g cream cheese
- 40g caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg, beaten
- 140g ripe red plums
- sifted icing sugar to decorate
How to do it
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a 20cm cake tin with baking paper.
In an electric mixer combine the flour, sugar, margarine and eggs and beat until smooth. Spread mixture into base of cake tin.
Beat the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla together, then gradually add in the egg until the mixture is smooth.
Pour the mixture over the top of the tin in an even layer, then arrange slices of the plums on top, pressure them in gently.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown and the cheesecake topping is starting to crack slightly.
Leave cool in the tin, then remove and dust with icing sugar to serve.
Notes
I made a few slight tweaks to the recipe: I used dark brown muscovado and butter in my cake mixture as that was on hand in my kitchen. I also forgot to add the icing sugar at the very end… but I think it tasted just as good without. I also think next time I whip this little slice up, I’ll double the cream cheese mixture on top – it was delicious and the thin layer on top, just wasn’t quite enough! I’m also confident you could swap out the plums for any other stone fruit you might have like peaches, nectarines – maybe even some pitted cherries.
Happy baking!
Have a wonderful week. x
Wattle and Ash 