Beyond Knitting
A Plum Torte for All Time
On Tuesday, the first day of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana, I got a sweet message from beloved MDK-er Stephanie B. She linked me to the New York Times obituary for long-time Times reporter and food writer Marian Burros, with the note: “during plum torte season no less.”
What are the odds that Marian Burros would die, at age 92, at the precise moment of the year when thousands of Jewish cooks are either creaming sugar and butter for her original plum torte, or still on the hunt for the small Italian plums that make the best version of it?
I’m extremely fond of this recipe. Having grown up with two near-daily bakers (my mom and next-door grandma), I recognized the celebrated plum torte as a casual one-bowl coffee cake, topped with syrupy, sticky-soft stone fruit. We used to make a plainer version in home ec in junior high school, topped with a cinnamon/brown-sugar crumble—delicious.
As soon as I heard of the plum-topped version, more than 20 years ago, I made a double batch every year at least twice, for meals marking the start and then the end of the High Holidays, serving two of them side-by-side with a giant bowl of fresh whipped cream to let ’em know who I am.
For those who only cook for big holidays, anxiously, and crave a round of applause when they do, the plum torte is a godsend. You will knock it out of the park every time.
The recipe is not specific to the Jewish holidays, by the way, but since early fall is peak plum season, the awesome cake and the Days of Awe are linked for eternity, at least around here.
The story of the plum torte is told briefly in Burros’s obituary. The recipe came from Burros’s childhood friend Lois Levine, and made its first appearance in Elegant but Easy, a mimeographed cookbook the two co-authored in 1960. Pete Wells updated the lore of the torte that roared in his remembrance of Marian Burros.
She liked to see her name in print. And she got to see it a lot.
Thanks for the torte, Marian Burros, and all the reporting on food dyes and labels and shenanigans. For decades, your byline stood for trust, good humor, and a good read.
P.S. When it’s my turn, Ann, please share the Ballband Dishcloth recipe, I mean pattern. I like to see my name in print.
So delightful. Thank you for all the shared Times links as well. This is going on my summer baking list, with peaches and apricots I think.
It is fabulous with peaches (or frankly pretty much any fruit).
Thank you for sharing this recipe. I’d forgotten about it and in the many moves since the 80’s, the printed recipe was lost. L’Shana Tova to all who celebrate. May you be inscribed for a good year
Shana Tovah u’Metukah. Gmar Tov.
My mother-in-law gave my sisters-in-law and me a copy of the ” Elegant But Easy Cookbook” in 1975. I’ve made the plum torte every year since. Try it with apples !!!
That is the cookbook my mom used too. It is in tatters but I have it now.
What a treasure. I might have to go looking for a used copy. My mother only had the Better Homes & Garden…but that’s because grandma was just next door, a living cookbook.
Way to start good and sweet year! <3
I make this every year for the High Holidays (and other times, too). It’s so simple but is so much greater than than the sum of its parts—it’s a magical recipe!
Exactly! So true.
So sorry to hear of the loss of Ms Burros.
Yes that plum cake recipe is so brilliant and always a good idea.
I had never thought of serving it with whipped cream!
Thanks for the post.
Always ask yourself: would whipped cream be good with this? It makes you very popular.
In my family we had whipped cream with our cranberry sauce at holiday meals. Friends and relatives who joined us picked up the idea and it spread hither and yon. Ripples in a pond. My mom always said she’d gotten the idea from my grandma on my dad’s side. My dad claimed the same. So, we decided to ask grandma about it for verification. She looked puzzled and claimed she’d never heard of it. No one had a clue about who decided to drop some whipped cream on the cranberry sauce, but there are now dozens (if not hundreds) of folks out there whipping up the cream for something other than pie on thanksgiving day.
I had frequently come across this recipe in the New York Times cooking app and this year I finally tried it, so wonderful. I had to ask the friendly food vendor at the local farmer’s market which plums to use and they pointed me to these small plums. And I agree with other readers, this cake would be good with any fruit. Happy Holidays to those of you who are celebrating now.
I am headed to the store to find Italian plums today. I can’t wait to try this. I am from the DC area and remember reading her food columns in the Washington Post. If I am not mistaken, she also appeared on local television programs talking about food safety.
I had just finished baking the torte for our Rosh Hashanah dinner this year when I learned of Marian’s passing. It’s been a staple at our family dinners for years!
This is absolutely, hands down, the BEST plum torte recipe ever!!!! It’s so easy, and turns out perfectly every time!!! I heard that it is one of the NYT’s most famous recipes!! I’ve tried it with just plums and a mix of plums and peaches, and will also try with other stone fruit…apricots? YUM!!!! Thanks for posting this!
Have baked this with peaches, nectarines, cherries, blueberries and raspberries, strawberries and pears. Endlessly versatile, easily adapted, and freezes well. What a gift to us all!
Going to make the torte this weekend and will clean up with one of my favorite Ball band dish cloths.
I have this recipe saved in NYT too! My mom who was also Kay, made this every September with those small beautiful Italian plums. Thanks for the reminder that September is almost over so to carry on this tradition I need to work fast!
I have been making this recipe for years. It is a family favorite. But I also make it with other fruit – works really well with blueberries and raspberries ( my daughter’s favorite). I make it for Rosh Hashanah with apples – that works great too – just make sure you overload the apples since they are not as juicy as the plums.
I appreciate the tip. I am allergic to stone fruit so was thinking apples.
Been making this since its original appearance, and had just made my first of the season when I read about her passing in the NYT.
I brought one to a monthly dissertation meeting ages ago – and a few days later my advisor called asking for the recipe.
There are several iterations cut out from The Grey Lady in my recipe file.
The ‘Eating Well’ column.
Hope she has a Kitchen Aid with her.
This made me laugh, I hope I can take my vintage 1987 Cuisinart with me.
Kay, I think my Cuisinart might be a few years older than yours!! I was going to make this recipe but forgot and now all my plums are gone for the season. I should try it with seckle pears just coming in now. I do have many, many jars of plum jam to give away. RIP Marian.
A great read. Thanks for the link Kay. :):)
Barbara
I’ve been making this recipe for years. I learned about it from the late Richard Sax’s American dessert book (don’t remember the exact title, but it’s a treasure). And I just happened to have a colander of plums in my counter waiting to be baked when I learned of Marian’s death. I was so happy that Pete Wells reprinted the recipe yesterday so I too can have a newspaper copy to cut out and use.
And the cake is wonderful with any fruit or fruit combo!
LShana Tova to you dear Kay!
Can’t wait to try the recipe
With love to you and Ann
I made this recipe some years ago—delicious, but exceptionally rich. It tastes wonderful with half the amount of butter and sugar.
Not a big fan of plums but when I got some in my CSA share in July I tried baking this. It was amazing, even with the “wrong” plums! Made it again yesterday.
I make it with the wrong plums and it’s always great!
Confession: this cake is possibly the only way I consume plums.
Plums are also wonderful in Melissa Clark’s Sheet Pan Chicken with Roasted Plums and Onions. The recipe is in the NYT cooking app. Another easy fall classic
Always love my MDK emails. Even when I don’t take the time to thank you, you are so appreciated! See you tomorrow!
This is hands down my favorite cake. My mom always made it for my early September birthday. I spent the past few years looking for an Italian prune plum tree so I could have them every year—they’re not always easy to find in the grocery stores, partly because they have a short growing season. Finally, this spring, I found one in NJ while visiting my in-laws. We stuffed it in the car, drove it 3.5 hours back to our house in upstate NY, and then left it at our dog boarder’s house overnight. 160 combined lbs of dogs don’t fit with luggage and a tree even in a Subaru Outback! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll have my own source of plums for this torte in a few years.
Getting a tree is next level commitment to a recipe! RESPECT
I love plums. But it seems to me they don’t make them like they used to! Usually too tart or too overripe, hardly ever “just right” and full-flavored. I.keep buying them anyway with high hopes. And every now and then hit the jackpot.
I tend to think of myself as not-a-baker but this is one of the few in my repertoire.
After reading all the other comments it seems to me I should make this cake.
Peer pressure! The peerage is correct in this case.
L’Shana Tova! I made this torte yesterday because I saw some prune plums at the store. Their season is short, so I bought extra to freeze. What a legacy Marian Burros has left.
I love this torte! I have recipe books from Marian Burros and still make her vegetable lasagna and vegetarian chili for my family. She was a trail blazer and it gives me great happiness to see that you love her too. I will be making a plum torte for Shabbos this week. My dear mother in law missed Rosh Hashanah dinner this year due to health issues. This will be just the thing to bring a smile to her face. May this year be a sweet one for you Kay and for all the wonderful creators that make this community so special.
I also have made the Plum Torte on repeat for years! It is one of the best recipes for a quick delicious cake. And if you only have apricots, they (or any stone fruit) work too!
Kay, your writing is always a balm to my soul. Thank you.
Many thanks for a touching tribute (and a good recipe).
What a sweet tribute Kay.
I clipped this recipe in 1986 when I was fortunate to be renting a tiny cabin with access to a decades old farm garden and a yard full of fruit trees. When the prune plums came in, I made dozens of these tortes for friends and my freezer. Like you, I have baked them every year since.
Thanks for the reminder to go ask my neighbor if he is ready to do a trade of his plums for a torte this year!
Always a keeper! Made this torte over and over as did my much older aunt on my in-laws side.
I love this torte. My version subs 1/4 cup cornmeal for 1/4 cup of the flour. I like the extra texture!
Thank you for posting this tribute to Marian Burros and the plum torte recipe. As the daughter of her co-author, Lois Levine (who’s still with us), I need to make one correction. My mother is the originator of that particular recipe but doesn’t always receive her due.
I’ve owned Elegant but Easy since its beginning–it was a great book for me as a new, very young, bride. Please thank your mother for me.
Thank you, AnneC. I will do that.
Oh the Memories ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
I just made this fantastic plum torte yesterday.
It truly marks the End of Summer, what a way to go!
I discovered this recipe a few years ago when I bought prune plums and was too lazy to make my mother’s recipe for a plum kuchen, that’s fantastic by lots of work. It’s one of those recipes where you take a taste and say, OMG!
This year I made one for the Jewish holiday and one for the freezer for my New York family when they come for Thanksgiving. Can’t wait to hear them swoon over it!
I love the prune plum torte. That is the best baked good ever. Prune plums have arrived here, they are in the fridge, and the torte will be baked this weekend. Palisade peaches are about as good as the prune plums. The peaches are waiting their turn. (Palisade peaches are a Colorado thing. So good!)
Lovely remembrance, Kay. I first encountered her recipe ages ago, clipped it and go on the hunt in the early fall for the special plums. My husband found some this year, so I made a tart and stashed the rest in the freezer so I could bake it again. I love that the recipe became so beloved that the Times had to permanently make it available.
I made this delicious torte today when an hour became available and the plums were just sitting there, begging to be baked. The perfect baked good for a sunny, fall day~Many thanks, Ms. Burros.
Thank you so much for commemorating Marion Burros. I missed the announcement of her death. She was the Kaffe Fasset of the food world. And her plum cake recipe was published every year for a long time by the NYT. It only in the last couple of years quite publishing it annually. Her name is still on so MANY recipes on NYT Cooking–so she is still in print! She was a giant! Thank you, Kay, my condolences and best wishes for the new year.
I followed Marian Burros through her time here in the DC area, on the local NBC station and in the Washington Post. I was a young single mother and her food-related pieces were down-to-earth, accessible and fact-based. I still use Elegant but Easy recipes, too. Thank you, Ms Burros.
“to let ‘em know who I am”
haha! good one Kay!!
This plum cake recipe is also beloved in our family. My Auntie Raisel made it every year at this time and everyone waited eagerly for it. Now we make it in her memory and because it’s just sooooo delicious. Thanks for sharing.