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Dear List:
Italian prune plums are in the markets.  Here is my adaptation of a
magnificent plum cake--the kind of homemade cake that made "the
green-eyed dragon with the thirteen tails"  (who could perfectly well
digest "little boys, puppy dogs, and big, fat snails") keel over and
die.   I count this cake among the best things ever to come out of a
kitchen.

It takes about 1 hour 15 minutes

3/4 cup sugar (I use 1/3 cup and still find it sweet)
1/2 cup unsalted butter (I use I Can't Believe it's not butter)
1 cup flour--I use roughly 2 parts brown rice flour, 2 parts corn meal,
        1 part rice bran, 1 part tapioca flour
1/4 tsp xantham gum
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt (optional)
2 eggs
24 halves pitted purple plum
Sugar, lemon juice, and cinammon for topping.

1.Preheat oven to 350.
2. Cream sugar and butter in a bowl.  Add dry ingredients and eggs.
Beat well.
3. Spoon the batter into a spring form pan (I line mine with foil to
avoid potential contamination). Place the plum halves skin side up on
top of the batter.  Sprinkle with sugar, juice and 1 tsp cinammmon to
taste.
4. Bake about one hour.
This can be frozen (double-wrapped in foil, and put in a sealed plastic
bag.)
Yield: 8 servings.

Can be made with apples and cranberries: Replace plums with 2 to 3
apples, peeled, seeded and quartered, and 1/2 cup raw cranberries.  This
cake is absolutely divine.  I cannot let summer end without it.