It was time, time to make the tart from the beautiful plums I picked from Pinecrest Orchard.  They’d ripened (some too much sadly), but I had enough to make the recipe I’d found. Whilst I’m not scared of making pastry, I wanted to keep the tart simple and when I found this particular recipe, I knew it was perfect.  So I’m not actually making a tart, I’m making a torte.  Is there a difference?  Yep – according to my quick google search, ehow states that “although both terms refer to desserts, and they rely for the most part on conventional ingredients such as flour, eggs and sugar, the finished products are very different. Tortes are fundamentally a cake, while tarts are pie-like”.  Times Union backs this up, stating “A fruit tart, for instance, has a pie-like pastry shell — bottom and sides, no top crust — while a fruit torte looks like a flat cake with fruit peeking out the sides or perhaps the top”.  There are other definitions but these seem to make sense to me (just don’t get confused by a Sachertorte or Linzetorte, the former a famous Viennese cake, the latter looks like a pie but is really like a cake, go figure).

Anyhoo, I was going to my friend’s place for dinner for some trip planning (we’re going to France together in May after I travel to Scotland with my Mum, cannot wait!) and I’d been told not to take any wine, so I thought this tart would be perfect to take for dessert instead.  I just cannot show up to someone’s home empty handed – can you?

The recipe I’d found was from the delicious everyday blog, but the recipe they’d used was originally from The New York Times, where it was first printed in 1983, and printed every year thereafter until 1989 which was to be the last year.  They even printed it with a broken border around it, to encourage people to cut it out and keep it.  When it wasn’t printed the following year, there was a lot of anger and an outcry!  Click here to read the history behind it.  Suffice to say though, it’s a popular recipe! And it also seemed quite a simple recipe too, perfect.

Admittedly the hardest part of the recipe, was removing the stones after halving the plums, or at least removing the stones and keeping the plums looking neat – some of them were stubborn!  The next decision I had to make was how much sugar to put in; the original recipe called for 1 cup, a later version reduced it to ¾ of a cup.  Normally I’d go with the healthier option but the plums weren’t the sweetest I’d ever had so decided to use the full cup.  I used my KitchenAid Stand Mixer to make the batter, I was worried that I hadn’t creamed the butter and sugar for long enough and I didn’t seem to have that much batter either, which was a little bit concerning.  Regardless, I forged ahead, poured the batter into the springform pan and placed the plums on top, squishing them a little into the batter.  I didn’t have room for the 24 halves though.  I think 8 plums would have sufficed (maybe Australian plums are much bigger, who knows, plus I didn’t use Blood Plums). 

I still had concerns that this torte wasn’t going to work…my plan B was an ice cream dessert I’d made at Christmas.  But I popped the tin in the oven, crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.  I needn’t have worried; as the batter cooked, the torte rose and my house started to smell truly wonderful (may be a good thing to cook just before an open home!).  I made it fresh to take with me, but probably should have allowed a little more time for it to cool – it almost broke when I transferred it to the plate, but I managed to save it.

Most importantly though, it was so so yummy – my friend had a thick creamy vanilla yoghurt, which went perfectly with the torte.  He didn’t want me to leave the entire torte at home as he’d eat it all, so I took home half, and he had a quarter to indulge in.  The best part?  You can pop this in the freezer so I did.  And when he came round for dinner again, I cut this in half, reheated it in a gentle oven, and kept another quarter for another day.  It was just as good, if not more so, than the last time.  Can’t get much better than that.  This is another recipe that I plan to make again and again and for inspiration for you, click here to read The New York Times’ ‘5 Ways to Adapt Our Famous Plum Torte Recipe’ article.

Happy baking xx