Rich and meaty, typical shepherd’s pie. Each person at the table will be delighted by the dish’s combination of lamb and sirloin and its creamy, cheesy mashed potato topping.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 1 hr |
| Additional Time: | 1 hr |
| Total Time: | 2 hrs 30 mins |
| Servings: | 10 |
| Yield: | 1 9-inch round cake |
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- ½ cup white sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 ½ teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
- ½ cup plain yogurt
- 3 plums, pitted and cut into eighths
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease a 9-inch cake pan, and line the bottom with a round piece of parchment paper.
- In a large bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, beat butter, brown sugar, and white sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy; beat in eggs one at a time, then beat in vanilla extract and lemon zest. Mix the butter mixture into the flour mixture, alternating with yogurt until the mixture forms a smooth, even batter. Spread the batter into the prepared cake pan. Place the plum slices into a bowl, and toss with 2 tablespoons of flour. Arrange the plum slices onto the cake in a decorative pattern.
- Bake in the preheated oven until browned, about 30 minutes. Loosely cover the cake with foil, and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean and the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan, 30 to 40 more minutes.
- Let cake cool completely in pan. Run a knife around the edge of the cake to loosen, and remove from pan. Dust with powdered sugar before slicing.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 321 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 41 g |
| Cholesterol | 93 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 5 g |
| Saturated Fat | 10 g |
| Sodium | 154 mg |
| Sugars | 24 g |
| Fat | 15 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I have both lemon and plum tress, and they are bountiful right now…when I saw this recipe I had to try it. I read the other reviews and followed some of the tips, here’s what I did: 1) I like lemon forward flavor, so I doubled the lemon zest and added 1T lemon extract for intensified lemon flavor, it worked! 2) I added a pinch of cardamom to the flour mixture, this added a unique flavor, next time I may try nutmeg too. 3) Finally, I also did half the batter first trick, placed plum slices, then remaining batter, and topped off with more plum slices. I used way more than 3 plums probably more like a dozen. The first layer of plum slices almost just baked into the cake, which made it very moist and flavorful, yummy! If I can add another photo, I’ll show you how a slice looks too. Great recipe that I will do again!
We substituted Greek Yoghurt, and it worked out just fine. Gone in 3 days with 3 of us!
I added more lemon zest. Flavourful cake but a bit dry.
Not a whole lot of lemon flavor to the batter, so I added a little lemon extract in addition to the zest. The lemon flavor is still subtle, maybe adding a little lemon juice would help. I baked for the recommended 30 minutes, took out of the oven, and all of the plums which I’d put on the top of the batter had sunk into the batter…no visible plums. Since the cake had risen about all that I thought it would, I then redecorated with another plum, and put back into the oven to complete baking. The plums that sunk into the cake ended up making this very moist. And that’s an unplanned good thing! Here’s what I’ll do the next time. Pour half of the batter into the pan, next a layer of plums, top with the rest of the batter, and bake for 30 minutes. Then remove from oven, decorate the top with another layer of plums, back into the oven, and check for doneness in 20 minutes (30-40 minutes more would have overcooked in my oven, so be safe and check at 20 minutes). I used only two plums and baked in an 8″ spring form pan for presentation. On the positive side, the plums lend not only moisture, but a little tartness, and the bottom line is this is a nice cake. Sorry for the length of this review, but just wanted to explain what happened here because it turned out to be a winner.
We really enjoyed this cake!