Fresh Plum Crumb Bake

We have a plum tree in our back yard that produces a TON of plums every summer.  We can spend an hour picking plums up and then an hour later the ground is covered again.  My husband started taking plums to people everywhere we went.

On the Fourth of July we went to a friends for a BBQ and he took some plums with us.  My friend laughed when we gave her the plums because she had just gotten some from her mom.  She had made a wonderful plum crumb bake with her plums.  I had to get the recipe from her, so I could finally do something with all of our plums.

Fresh Plum Dessert
From: Unknown

Ingredients:
7 large plums, pitted and quartered (we have small plums, so I used about 20)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons plus 1 cup all-purpose flour, divided
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions:

In a large bowl combine the plums, brown sugar 3 tablespoons flour and cinnamon.

 Spoon into a greased 2-quart baking dish.

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and remaining flour.  Add egg; stir with a fork until crumbly.  Sprinkle over plum mixture.  Drizzle with butter.

Bake at 375 for 40-45 minutes or until plums are tender and top is golden brown.  Cool for 10 minutes before serving.  Serve warm or at room temperature.
I served it with some vanilla ice cream.  It made it even better.

I have made this three times trying to use up some plums.  Thank goodness that plum season is coming to an end.

Fourth of July Cake

For my niece's birthday I am making a Barbie cake.  I will cover the cake with fondant, but I have never worked with it before.  I decided to practice by making a cake for the Fourth of July.

Most things that I read about fondant said that the store bought stuff tastes pretty nasty.  I didn't want to make a cake that didn't taste good, so I found a recipe online to make my own using marshmallows.  It was pretty simple and tasted great!

Using fondant was like working with play-doh.  It was fun and not as scary as I thought it would be.  I know that it's not perfect, but for my first attempt I think it turned out pretty good.  It's something that I'll try again.  There are so many different ways that it can be used. 

For the cake I used the same recipe from Glorious Treats that I use for my vanilla cupcakes.  As I've said before, I will never use another vanilla cake recipe.  I also used a strawberry filling from her and her cream cheese frosting under the fondant.