Ole Fashioned Southern Sugar Plum Cake
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Filled with spices, walnuts, and dried plums, this sugar plum cake recipe (also known as prune cake) is a delicious Southern version of fruit cake to bake this Christmas.
This sugar plum cake is one of my mother’s cherished recipes that her mother used to make her as a child, especially at Christmas time. I’ve heard her talk about it for years and it’s been decades since she had one so I decided to snatch the recipe and surprise her with it last week. Merry Christmas, Mama!
Sugar plum cake is an old-fashioned Southern recipe that basically resembles a traditional fruit cake. Besides the usual cake batter ingredients, your sugar plum cake is loaded with chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans), cinnamon and allspice, vanilla extract, and dried plums (also known as prunes, but people like seem to like dried plums more than prunes nowadays 😉).
It’s served with a deliciously sweet sauce, so you know each slice of this spiced prune cake is going to be scrumptiously dense, moist, and tender.
Recipe Ingredients
- All-purpose flour
- Chopped nuts (I used walnuts because they are cheaper than pecans)
- Eggs
- Cinnamon
- Sugar
- Baking soda
- Allspice
- Vanilla extract
- Buttermilk
- Oil
- Dried plums (pitted prunes)
Chop prunes or dried plums up so they’re the size of raisins.
If you get any with the pits in them, remove them and discard them (that’s fancy talk for “throwaway”).
I buy the packets of .
Place the sliced plums in a large bowl and add your flour.
Toss this flour mixture up a bit. This will help keep the from sinking all the way down into the cake when it is baking.
Add oil to the .
Then buttermilk.
Next, add eggs to the cake batter.
Then add the nuts (which you can leave out if your life is nutty enough).
Add vanilla extract.
Then the spices, baking soda, and salt.
Finally, add the sugar.
Mix that up with an electric or and then grease your cake pan.
I’m using a bundt cake pan, but Mama says her mother used to use a 9×13 cake pan, so go with whatever is easiest for you. If you’re going to use a 9×13 though, just spray it with a little cooking spray and you’ll be fine.
Us bundt users need to smear shortening in our pan.
Then sprinkle some flour into your bundt cake pan. Pat that around a bit to coat it and then discard the excess.
Here is our spice cake batter all mixed up.
Go ahead, you know you wanna lick the beater!
Pour that into your prepared pan…
and bake for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Prepare the sauce
When that is getting ready to come out of the oven or shortly after, you need to assemble your sauce ingredients: vanilla, buttermilk, sugar, butter, and baking soda.
Add all of that together in a pot.
Bring it to a boil over , stirring constantly. It will foam up a little but that’s okay.
Keep stirring and cooking until it thickens a bit, about two minutes.
Poke holes all over the top of your hot prune cake.
Pour the hot sauce over the hot cake.
Let sit for about 10 minutes or so in the pan until it absorbs all of the sauce.
Then turn it out.
Serve warm or cold. It’s excellent with a dollop of homemade whipped cream or a scoop of
Now I see why Mama has missed this cake so much. It was WONDERFUL!
Storage
- Store cake leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge for up to 4 days.
- You can also store cooled cake leftovers in the freezer for up to 6 months. Thaw in the fridge before serving.
Recipe Notes
- Remember, you can use whichever nuts you like, including chopped pieces or slivered almonds for something different.
- Instead of the sauce, you can also serve your with . Check out this for pumpkin praline with for instructions.
Here are more old-fashioned Southern dessert recipes:
Old Fashioned Hummingbird Cake Recipe
Yellow Cake with Old-Fashioned Peanut Butter Icing
M&M Cookies Recipe by Mama (Old-Fashioned Recipe!)
Tea Cake Cookies (Old-Fashioned and Crispy)
Easy Old-Fashioned Peach Cobbler Recipe
Peanut Butter Pie Made the Old-Fashioned Way
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp allspice
- 2 tsp cinnamon* or 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup dried plums chopped
- 1 ½ cup chopped nuts I used walnuts
Sauce
- 1 stick butter
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- ½ tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cups buttermilk
Instructions
- Grease and flour a bundt or 9x13 cake pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Combine all cake ingredients in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer until well combined. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for one hour.2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 ½ cups sugar, 3 eggs, 1 cup vegetable oil, 1 tsp baking soda, ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp allspice, 2 tsp cinnamon*, 1 cup buttermilk, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 cup dried plums, 1 ½ cup chopped nuts
- Just before the cake is done, place all the sauce ingredients into a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly, and continue boiling gently until sauce is thickened, or about two minutes.1 stick butter, 1 ½ cups sugar, 2 tsp vanilla extract, ½ cups buttermilk, ½ tsp baking soda
- Remove the baked cake from the oven and poke holes all over the top with a fork. Pour the hot sauce over the hot cake. Allow the cake to sit in the pan until the sauce is absorbed.
Nutrition
The difference between an ordinary life and an extraordinary life
is finding extraordinary things in an ordinary life.
~Submitted by Judy. Submit your quote here.
Your rings are beautiful. I don’t know where I learned the proper way to wear wedding rings but I heard a long time ago that the wedding ring goes on first and then the engagement ring. The reason is “the wedding ring is suppose to be the one closest to your heart”!
Has anyone else ever heard this???
I’ve heard of it and get told it often. I’m just a rebel I guess 🙂
I just got alot of canned plums. I trying figure out should I use them in making this cake.
Speaking of old fashioned things, have you ever had a Graham Cracker Cake ?
Mother made one the best fruit cake I ever ate…much better than store bought fruit cakes! I have the recipe I may have to make it this year!
Gran, I would love to have copy of that recipe for fruit cake. My MIL made them every Christmas. I don’t have access to her recipe file. She also made a wonderful moist coconut cake. She passed away a few years ago just before her 90 th birthday.
Used to make this when I was a kid and I still love a good ole Prune Cake ! It’s nice to know I’m not the only person who does not like nutmeg ! Funny how when you call them prunes, nobody likes them, call them dried plums and they’re the “in” thing to have !
At last someone on my side about nutmeg! I really, really, really dislike it.
Recipe looks great. Can’t wait to try it.
So good to see that I’m not in the boat alone with nutmeg…I choose boiled custard (Or I think the calling it Holiday Custard now) over Egg Nog…Egg Nog has a taste of nutmeg in it! So if you don’t like Egg Nog ..try Boiled Custard~
I love the comments about diamonds. We live in a materialistic society full of pride. An attitude of thankfulness pushes aside pride and makes us better people. What ever we have, we should develop a sincere heart of thankfulness and contentment will flow. Judging from your comments you have true contentment. Enjoy your rings and all your other blessings.
Christy, I loved your story and it even made me weepy. So great to read these beatiful stories about a Beautiful family!!!!!!
Dried ‘plums” are on my list for tomorrow. This will be a fantastic dessert!!!!!
Your ring story is similar to mine. My set cost around $200.00 also and still are beautiful–even after 43 years of marriage. 🙂 I had to take them off whenever I worked because they scratched my patients (I was an RN.) Now, I can’t wear them any longer because of rheumatoid arthritis but I get them out of the jewelry box once in a while and look at them. You are right, Christy. They have a lot of sentiment and memories attached to them. Thanks for your story and recipes.