1 cup all purpose flour, 1.5 tsp (1 1/2 tsp) baking powder, 0.25 tsp (1/4 tsp) salt is the standard recipe.

Smaller than a quarter would be hard to measure, but double what you need. precision isn't completely necessary at that level. Try 2 tbsp flour, a generous 1/8 tsp of baking powder (or 1/4 tsp if you don't like estimating) and a pinch of salt. Or skip the salt.

Can you post the recipe? Sounds weird.

Something I learned when making cakes without recipes in my youth, it doesn't matter really how much baking powder, so long as you remember to put in baking powder. It came in little packets, and I went from trying to measure to eyeballing half a packet, and it all worked fine. Round up to 1/4 tsp, if that feels better. I'm guessing it's meant to be a dense cake anyway, as plum cakes are, and the baking powder is for the texture rather than rising.

I'm not clear what a plum cake is. I would still like to see the recipe.

This was given to me by a friend, when I asked in my FB page for plum baking recipes. I'd just got a lot on sale, and was in the mood for some kind of cake.

Scrambled three eggs with one cup of sugar, Add one cup of buttermilk , then add one cup of plain flour and 2 tablespoons of self raising flour. Grease a metal pan and line with semolina /farina (this is old-school parchment paper) Pour the batter into the pan, slice the plums up and put a layer over the top of the batter. In a small bowl, mix one egg, half a cup of sour cream and a quarter of a cup of sugar. Pour over the plums . Place in oven at about 370° and bake for about 40 minutes. Or until golden Brown on top and cooked.

That sounds like the famous recipe of Marian Burros for Plum Torte from the NYTimes.

It calls for:

3/4 to 1 cup sugar

!/2 salted butter, softened

! cup unbleached flour, sifted

1 Tsp Baking Powder

pinch of salt (optional)

2 eggs

24 halves pitted purple plums

sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon for topping

And if you are using the common purple plums found in many grocery stores today you will need fewer. The original recipe was for Italian prune plums which are smaller and not always available everywhere.

Right, so these cakes actually use plums. In older writing plum cake and plum pudding can mean one made with dried vine fruits. Thank you for the explanation. When I make a plum cake I just use Victoria sponge proportions and sling sliced plums on top. But I very rarely bake. We'd be enormous if there was regularly cake in the house.

Most general porportions of flour and baking powder use about 1 teaspoon of baking powder to one cup or flour, more or less depending on what you want it to do. Maybe just add a pinch of bakng powder to the mix and it is hard to see how it will make any real difference.

Looking again, there are a lot more eggs than flour in this recipe! 4 eggs versus 1 cup of flour. And no butter or oil?

Maybe it's more like a baked custard? Only with flour too?