Serves 8

Ingredients

500g ripe plums

For the cake:

200g butter
75g light muscovado sugar
75g golden caster sugar
100g skinned hazelnuts
4 eggs
150g self-raising wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt

For the icing:

150g icing sugar
3 tsp lemon juice
6 cardamom pods
a pinch ground cinnamon
1 tsp sesame seeds
2 tsp poppy seeds
2 tsp dried rose petals

Method

Set the oven at 160°C. Line the base of a 23cm springform baking tin with baking parchment.

Halve and stone the plums and set aside.

Make the cake: dice the butter, then put it in the bowl of a food mixer with the sugars and beat for a good five minutes till light and fluffy; the colour of latte. Regularly push the mixture down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula to ensure even creaming.

While the butter and sugar cream, toast the hazelnuts in a dry pan, watching carefully and moving them round the pan so they colour evenly. Grind to a fine powder in a food processor. Beat the eggs lightly with a fork, then add, slowly, with the paddle turning, to the butter and sugar. Combine the ground hazelnuts, flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt, then add to the batter, mixing it together thoroughly.

Scrape the batter into the lined tin and gently smooth the surface. Place the plums on the surface of the cake. They will sink into the cake as it bakes. Bake for 55 minutes to an hour, until the cake is spongy to the touch. (Test for doneness with a metal skewer. It should come out a little damp, but without any raw cake mixture sticking to it.)

Remove the cake from the oven and leave to settle for 20 minutes. Run a palette knife around the inside of the tin to loosen the cake, then carefully undo the spring clip and transfer the cake to a plate.

Make the icing: sift the icing sugar into a bowl, stir in the lemon juice and add a little water – just a drop or two – if necessary to bring it to a thick pouring consistency. Crack the cardamom pods, remove the black seeds and grind them to a fine powder, then stir into the icing. Stir in the ground cinnamon and pour over the cake. Lightly toast the sesame seeds in a dry pan until golden, then mix them with the poppy seeds and dried rose petals and scatter them over the icing.

If your plums aren’t perfectly ripe, cook them briefly first.

500g unripe plums
30g butter
250ml unfiltered apple juice

Halve and stone the plums. Melt the butter in a shallow pan and add the fruit, cut sides down. Pour in the apple juice and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and cook for 10 to 15 minutes, until the plums are translucent and tender to the point of a knife. The apple juice will have virtually disappeared. Watch the fruit carefully towards the end of cooking, making sure it doesn’t collapse.

Remove from the heat and continue as above.

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A Cook’s Book: 3 classic Nigel Slater recipes to serve at your next dinner party