Plum cake in a significant tradition of cake making: "...throughout the districts of the Loire, the Dordogne, the Lot and the Périgord, there [was] hardly a celebration, a wedding feast or celebration at which the dessert [did] not include some sort of plum or mirabelle tart, made with fresh or dried plums or jam according to the season." The Mirabelle plum is a specific cultivar used to make "Tarte aux mirabelles" (plum tart). A "Galette aux fruits" is a type of galette made with yeast dough and covered with previously cooked fruit in season, such as plums (or quinces, apples, apricots). The
Plum cake currants were used, which in the English language were referred to as plums since around 1660. The various types of dried fruit (grapes, currants and raisins) were familiar to English kitchens through trade with The Levant and Mediterranean but before they became available through "trouble-free" imports from Australia, South Africa and California, preparing them required "an immense amount of labour ... on account of the rough and ready methods by which the fruit was picked, dried, packed and exported". In 1881 Colonel Henry-Herbert said that "a good English plum cake...is a national institution". At times, Thomas Carlyle was one among