Hilary's Plum Torte

My dear Hilary flew out to Tucson to help me make my new apartment a real home. As part of my housewarming package, she baked a delicious hoity-toity dessert, the recipe for which I am now sharing with all you dear readers so you, too, can have hoity-toity Italian prune plum torte. The plums are only available in the late summer, and they are the tiny dark purple ones.

Ingredients:

3/4 cup sugar

1 stick unsalted butter

1 cup unbleached flour (sifted, if you want to be all hoity-toity about it)

2 eggs

1 pinch salt

1 tsp baking powder

12 Italian prune plums

sugar and lemon juice for topping

a sprinkle of ground cinnamon for topping

Preheat ye olde oven to 350 degrees. Nuke the butter for 10 seconds on high in the microwave and plop it into a bowl (or a fancy-pants stand mixer, if you have one). Cream in the sugar (with the stand mixer, or if you're ghetto like the rest of us, just use a potato masher), then add the eggs, flour, and baking powder. Pour the mixture into a springform pan, and smooth out the top with a spatula (or your finger, you unsanitary boor, you). Cut each plum in half and arrange each half tastefully across the top of the cake base. Squeeze lemon juice atop the mixture and sprinkle with a little sugar and cinnamon, then shove it in the oven for 1 hour. Remove, let cool, and then pop the ring and serve. On hoity-toity matching plates with hoity-toity tea (or paper towels, you declasse bum, you).