 Plum cake recipes in the fruitcake style appeared in early cookbooks in the Southern United States , and did not actually call for plums . After 1830 plum cake was often referred to as fruit cake or black cake . In 1885 , in a description of plum cake that sounds like plum pudding , it was described as " <unk> " - a solid , dark @-@ colored , thick cake with copious amounts of plums , gritty notes from raisins . 
