Baked Plum & Rum Cake

I had never being a fan of "Plum" before until Tracy gave me the Plum Chutney and I started to fall in love with it. I find that these little plum taste even better when baked or even made into Plum Jam. In this recipe I would like to share with you on how to make use of plum which is in season to make it into a mini plum cake that will melt in your mouth and taste sort of like Baked Japanese Cheesecake.

You can use any kind of plum that is in season either red or black. For this recipe, I happen to have these sweet red plum in the fridge so I decided to try out this recipe. The texture of the cake is very soft, fine and cotton like and guess what, most of my friends who tried it comments that it taste like baked cheesecake despite that there is isn't any cream cheese content.

Ingredients: (makes about 15 mini cakes)
80g Butter, room temperature
60g Sugar
1 Medium Size egg, lightly beaten
100g Plain Yogurt(thick creamy type)
100g Cake Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
Apricot Glazing Gel, (Optional)

Methods:
1. Sift the flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl and set aside.
2. Cream the butter and sugar till creamy and white (about 5 mins), then slowly add in the egg mixture in 2 addition after beating into the butter mixture.
3. Next add in 1 tablespoon of the RUM mixture, 1/3 of the plain yogurt and 1/3 of the flour mixture and beat well.
4. Repeat the procedure until all the mixture is used up.
5. Next spoon or pipe almost 3/4 full of the batter into the cup case and top it with one or two slices of the RUM plum.
6. Repeat for the rest of the cup till all the batter use up.
7. Baked in the preheat 170 degree oven for about 15 - 18 minutes depending on the size of the cake.
8. When the cakes are slightly warm, brush the top with some Apricot glazing to give it a shiny look.

Plum Topping:
3 Red Plum, cut into wedges
50ml RUM
2 Tablespoons Brown Sugar

Methods:
1. Cut the plum into wedges of 6 each and mixed well with the RUM and brown sugar and set aside in the fridge to absorb the favour for at least 30 minutes.
2. Removed the plum wedges from the RUM mixture and drain well to remove any excess liquid then reserved the RUM mixture.

Note:
a) You can get either Pauls - Natural Yogurt or Farmers Union Greek Style Yogurt.
b) If you do not have any Apricot Glazing Gel, you can replace it with 4 tablespoons Apricot jam that is warm up with 1/2 tablespoon for hot water in microwave up medium heat.