Upside Down Plum Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Base - low/no fat

Serves 8

Preparation time: 50 minutes

Mmmmm plums! These beautiful purple fruits remind me of climbing trees with my brother in the fields behind our house when we were children. Our mum would send us out to pick them, unaware that most would end up splattered against the barn wall (or our faces) as casualties of great plum throwing competitions. The years have passed and I have since found an equally satisfying and fun thing to do with plums - baking them in a upside down cake. And if it's going to have a fancy top, why not give it a beautiful bottom too, by adding a base lawyer of strawberry cream cheese!

This cake is very low in fat but if you want it fat free either leave out the cream cheese bottom completely or replace it with strawberry coulis, it will still be delicious, I promise. 

And if you don't like the cake.. creep over to the wall of that grumpy old neighbors house, steady, aim.. and SPLATTER!

This recipe was adapted from a peach upside down cake by FatFreeVegan. 

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/2 cup + 2 T brown or demerara sugar (liquid sweetener also works)

pinch of salt

1 cup dairy free milk mixed

1 and 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups peeled and sliced plums

For the Strawberry cream cheese base

1 cup strawberries, frozen or fresh

1/4 cup liquid sweetener or unrefined sugar

3 T dairy free cream cheese*

* to make your own cream cheese blend 1 handful of cashew nuts with about 1/4 cup silken tofu and 1 T liquid sweetener and a pinch of salt.

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F/180C.

Melt the 1 T of margarine over low heat and spread all over the bottom of a 9inch round cake tin. Combine the plums with the 2 T of sugar and a squeeze 1/2 T of the lemon juice in a saucepan over low to medium heat and cook for about 4 minutes, until the fruit starts to soften. Place the plums on the bottom of the cake tin. 

Combine the flour, cinnamon, salt, ginger, baking powder and sugar (unless you are using liquid sweetener) in a medium-sized bowl. Then combine the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl, including the remaining 1 T of lemon juice and the liquid sweetener if you are using this type of sweetener instead of sugar. Leave for about 4 minutes then combine the dry and the wet ingredients.

Pour and smooth the batter over the plums until they are completely covered. Place in the oven for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean. 

Meanwhile for the strawberry cream cheese bottom, heat the strawberries, lemon juice and sugar/liquid sweetener over medium heat until they are simmering and soft. Put in a blender together with the cream cheese and blend until smooth, taste to adjust in case you want to add more sugar/sweetener. A few minutes before the cake is done remove it from the oven and pour the strawberry cream cheese on top then place back in the oven for a few minutes.  

Remove from the oven and allow the cake to cool in the tin before loosening with a knife, placing over a plate and turning the cake carefully over onto the plate.