The Plum Torte: A Beloved Recipe with a Rich History

It is going to rise it's going to puff up so just kind of nestle the plum, squeeze some lemon on top and then granulated sugar and some cinnamon just a whisper. I'm going to put it in the oven for about an hour. The Plum Torte is a recipe that was published in 1983 and ran every single summer after that from 1983 to 1989. Then, in 1990, the editors of the time said, "you know what? Enough is enough. We're going to run this one last time." People were outraged, with many having some very colorful things to say. A reader in Terrytown, New York said, "The appearance of the recipe like the Torte itself is Bittersweet summer is leaving fall is coming that's what your annual recipe is all about don't be grumpy about it."

One New Yorker wrote, "It has become the adult version of September's shiny new notebook for school so it's a very beloved recipe and when this recipe went away people were very sad about it." Which is where we get comments like, "who do you think you are? Take your Torte and shove it!" That's a fun one. While my original Plum Torte bakes, I'm going to do some variations for this first variation. I'm going to use brown butter. Brown butter is only going to add an enhanced nutty flavor. What I'm going to do is put my butter on the stove and wait for those fast bubbles to start and then once they start to subside, I know that a lot of the moisture is cooked out of the butter that's when it's becoming more viscous and the milk will start to brown.

I'm going to remove that from the stove top and put it in an ice bath stir it around in the ice bath and then it kind of becomes more of that softened butter consistency. That we used for the original recipe. I'm going to zest my lemon before I squeeze it on top, lemon zest is delicious in a lot of things, I think it will pair really nicely with that fruit. A lot of readers suggested that said it was delicious and then another big ingredient change up was instead of the cinnamon on top, to do cardamom. So, I'm going to use some cardamom.

I'm going to use a cast iron skillet. That's something that a lot of people have not used before. We're going to bake it in here and see how it turns out. Cool so let's get going. Great! She's ready to go into the oven for an hour. I read a lot about using alternative flowers, so for this variation, I'm going to change out a half cup of the all-purpose flour for semolina. Did see that some people had some great success with olive oil for our dairy-free friends out there, so I feel like the semolina and the olive oil is going to give it kind of this Italian countryside vibe.

It's giving me "call me by your name" vibes. It's giving me "Oliver and Elio" eating a Plum Torte by the pool. This is my fantasy Plum Torr. Wow, look at all my children. They look good enough to eat so let's cut into them shall we? Oh my God, it's so good! The texture is so great. The sugar on top gives it a little crunch that cinnamon is like oh what is that is that cinnamon and then the plums. This is something that makes the fruit the star.

I'm very excited about this one. This is the brown butter with lemon zest, the turban of sugar on top, baked in a cast iron skillet. Holy Moses! Wow, that's really good. The lemon zest adds like this brightness. The brown butter adds this nuttiness. The turbinado sugar on top makes it even crunchier than the original. It's extremely good. And it bakes up really well in the cast iron.

Okay, this is our olive oil semolina one. This is my Italian fantasy Plum Torr. Wow, that one's really good! The olive oil really comes through. The semolina adds this nice bite to the overall texture of everything and the finesse of the olive oil makes it sing! I kind of love all of them. I think that my ultimate version could be the cast iron version just cuz I like brown butter, I like lemon zest, I like turbinado sugar.

But this one is also fabulous. And you can never go wrong with the original. The beauty of recipes is that they are living entities that people can and should adapt to their tastes. If there's a recipe in the NYT Cooking Database that is meant for people to add their personalities into it, it is this recipe! This is one of those recipes that takes on many lives of its own. It works with any fruit too, so you can make it year-round.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou know what would go great with this coffee a plum Tor that's the intro hello everybody my name is vau I am a video journalist for nyt cooking and today I'm going to be making one of I think I say this every time but this time I really mean it this is probably the most like sacred nyt cooking recipe today I'm going to be making the original Plum tort and I'm going to pick and choose some of my favorite suggestions and amendments from readers I'm going to make it maybe once twice more and have a big Plum Tor party after that so let's get bacon I'm going to start by preparing my plums just so I have them off to the side so you use Plum halves or really whatever fruit is in season so this recipe calls for 12 pitted and haved plums there's no way that 24 halves of plums are going to fit into this thing so use your best judgment if you buy too many plums that's not a bad problem to have so I'm going to just have these put them off to the side before I get going with my cake batter butter goes in the recipe will say 3/4 to 1 cup sugar a lot of that depends on how ripe or naturally sweet your fruit is it won't change the chemistry of the bake too terribly much if you do 3/4 cup to one cup kick her in high gear now in a lot of cake recipes I would venture to say most types of cake recipes this is where you would then add your like eggs and your vanilla here the recipe calls for you to just kind of dump everything in at once flour baking powder a nice little pinch of salt this start on low just kind of Let It Go for a minute you don't want to over mix but I am going to let it kind of get well Incorporated so I just used a little offset spatula to kind of smooth it all out you don't want to press the plums into the batter itself because there is a lot of like leaver in there it is going to rise it's going to puff up so just kind of nestle the plum squeeze some lemon on top and then granulated sugar and some cinnamon just a whisper I'm going to put it in the oven for about an hour the plum Tor is a recipe that was published in 1983 and ran every single summer after that from 1983 to 1989 then in 1990 the editors of the time said you know what enough is enough we're going to run this one last time people were outraged a lot of people had some very colorful things to say I have some real fun ones right here a reader in Terrytown New York said the appearance of the recipe like the Tor itself is Bittersweet summer is leaving fall is coming that's what your annual recipe is all about don't be grumpy about it perhaps one New Yorker wrote it has become the adult version of September's shiny new notebook for school so it's a very beloved recipe and when this recipe went away people were very sad about it which is where we get comments like who do you think you are take your Tor and shove it that's a fun one anyway while my original Plum tort bakes I'm going to do some variations for this first variation I'm going to use brown butter the brown butter is only going to like add this enhanced nutty flavor what I'm going to do is I'm going to put my butter on the stove wait for those fast really sputter Bubbles and then once they start to subside I know that a lot of the moisture is cooked out of the butter that's when it's becoming more viscous and the milk salads are starting to Brown and I'm going to actually remove that from the stove top and I'm going to put it in an ice bath stir it around in the ice bath and then it kind of becomes more of that softened butter consistency that we used for the original recipe I'm going to zest my lemon before I squeeze it on top lemon zest is delicious in a lot of things I think it'll peir really nicely with that fruit a lot of readers suggested that said it was delicious and then another big ingredient change up was instead of the cinnamon on top to do cardamom so I'm going to use some cardamom I'm going to use a cast iron skillet I think that a cast iron skillet is something that a lot of people have not a lot of people have a spring form pan so we're going to bake it in here and see how it turns out cool so let's get going great she's ready to go in the oven for an hour I read a lot about using alternative flowers so for this variation I'm going to change out a half cup of the allpurpose flour for semolina I did see that some people had some great success with olive oil for our dairyfree friends out there so I feel like the semolina and the olive oil is going to give it kind of this like Italian Countryside it's giving call me by your name it's giving like Oliver and Elio like eating a plum Tor by the pool this is my fantasy Plum tor wow look at all my children they look good enough to eat so let's cut into them shall we oh my God it's so good the texture is so great the sugar on top gives it a little crunch that cinnamon is like oh what is that is that cinnamon and then the plums this is something that makes the fruit the star I'm very excited about this one this is the brown butter with lemon zest the turban of sugar on top and baked in a cast iron skillet holy Moses wow that's really good the lemon zest adds like this brightness the brown butter adds this nuttiness the turbinado sugar on top makes it even crunchier than the original it's extremely good and it baked up really well in the cast iron okay this is our olive oil semolina one this is my my Italian fantasy Plum Tor wow that one's really good the olive oil really comes through the semolina adds this like really nice bite to the overall texture of everything and the fuess of the olive oil makes this really sing I kind of love all of them I think that my ultimate version could be the cast iron version just cuz I like brown butter I like lemon zest I like turbinado sugar but this one is also fabulous and you can never go wrong with the original the beauty of recipes is that they are living entities that people can and should adapt to their tastes if there is a recipe in the nyt cooking database that is like meant for people to add their personalities into it it is this recipe this is one of those that takes on many lives of its own and it works with any fruit too so you can make it year round it is the perfect recipe be full stop that's it that's the videoyou know what would go great with this coffee a plum Tor that's the intro hello everybody my name is vau I am a video journalist for nyt cooking and today I'm going to be making one of I think I say this every time but this time I really mean it this is probably the most like sacred nyt cooking recipe today I'm going to be making the original Plum tort and I'm going to pick and choose some of my favorite suggestions and amendments from readers I'm going to make it maybe once twice more and have a big Plum Tor party after that so let's get bacon I'm going to start by preparing my plums just so I have them off to the side so you use Plum halves or really whatever fruit is in season so this recipe calls for 12 pitted and haved plums there's no way that 24 halves of plums are going to fit into this thing so use your best judgment if you buy too many plums that's not a bad problem to have so I'm going to just have these put them off to the side before I get going with my cake batter butter goes in the recipe will say 3/4 to 1 cup sugar a lot of that depends on how ripe or naturally sweet your fruit is it won't change the chemistry of the bake too terribly much if you do 3/4 cup to one cup kick her in high gear now in a lot of cake recipes I would venture to say most types of cake recipes this is where you would then add your like eggs and your vanilla here the recipe calls for you to just kind of dump everything in at once flour baking powder a nice little pinch of salt this start on low just kind of Let It Go for a minute you don't want to over mix but I am going to let it kind of get well Incorporated so I just used a little offset spatula to kind of smooth it all out you don't want to press the plums into the batter itself because there is a lot of like leaver in there it is going to rise it's going to puff up so just kind of nestle the plum squeeze some lemon on top and then granulated sugar and some cinnamon just a whisper I'm going to put it in the oven for about an hour the plum Tor is a recipe that was published in 1983 and ran every single summer after that from 1983 to 1989 then in 1990 the editors of the time said you know what enough is enough we're going to run this one last time people were outraged a lot of people had some very colorful things to say I have some real fun ones right here a reader in Terrytown New York said the appearance of the recipe like the Tor itself is Bittersweet summer is leaving fall is coming that's what your annual recipe is all about don't be grumpy about it perhaps one New Yorker wrote it has become the adult version of September's shiny new notebook for school so it's a very beloved recipe and when this recipe went away people were very sad about it which is where we get comments like who do you think you are take your Tor and shove it that's a fun one anyway while my original Plum tort bakes I'm going to do some variations for this first variation I'm going to use brown butter the brown butter is only going to like add this enhanced nutty flavor what I'm going to do is I'm going to put my butter on the stove wait for those fast really sputter Bubbles and then once they start to subside I know that a lot of the moisture is cooked out of the butter that's when it's becoming more viscous and the milk salads are starting to Brown and I'm going to actually remove that from the stove top and I'm going to put it in an ice bath stir it around in the ice bath and then it kind of becomes more of that softened butter consistency that we used for the original recipe I'm going to zest my lemon before I squeeze it on top lemon zest is delicious in a lot of things I think it'll peir really nicely with that fruit a lot of readers suggested that said it was delicious and then another big ingredient change up was instead of the cinnamon on top to do cardamom so I'm going to use some cardamom I'm going to use a cast iron skillet I think that a cast iron skillet is something that a lot of people have not a lot of people have a spring form pan so we're going to bake it in here and see how it turns out cool so let's get going great she's ready to go in the oven for an hour I read a lot about using alternative flowers so for this variation I'm going to change out a half cup of the allpurpose flour for semolina I did see that some people had some great success with olive oil for our dairyfree friends out there so I feel like the semolina and the olive oil is going to give it kind of this like Italian Countryside it's giving call me by your name it's giving like Oliver and Elio like eating a plum Tor by the pool this is my fantasy Plum tor wow look at all my children they look good enough to eat so let's cut into them shall we oh my God it's so good the texture is so great the sugar on top gives it a little crunch that cinnamon is like oh what is that is that cinnamon and then the plums this is something that makes the fruit the star I'm very excited about this one this is the brown butter with lemon zest the turban of sugar on top and baked in a cast iron skillet holy Moses wow that's really good the lemon zest adds like this brightness the brown butter adds this nuttiness the turbinado sugar on top makes it even crunchier than the original it's extremely good and it baked up really well in the cast iron okay this is our olive oil semolina one this is my my Italian fantasy Plum Tor wow that one's really good the olive oil really comes through the semolina adds this like really nice bite to the overall texture of everything and the fuess of the olive oil makes this really sing I kind of love all of them I think that my ultimate version could be the cast iron version just cuz I like brown butter I like lemon zest I like turbinado sugar but this one is also fabulous and you can never go wrong with the original the beauty of recipes is that they are living entities that people can and should adapt to their tastes if there is a recipe in the nyt cooking database that is like meant for people to add their personalities into it it is this recipe this is one of those that takes on many lives of its own and it works with any fruit too so you can make it year round it is the perfect recipe be full stop that's it that's the video\n"