Zwetschgenkuchen mit Streusel: First Italian plums of the season. These are not exactly the ones that are used in this cake/pastry in German households. A smaller slightly sweeter and...

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

First Italian plums of the season. These are not exactly the ones that are used in this cake/pastry in German households. A smaller slightly sweeter and less juicy Blue Damson Plum (Zwetschgenpflaume) is traditional, but the Italian variety is close enough for now.

A simple short crust made with an egg, flour sugar and butter, plums, and a streusel topping (butter, sugar, flour, cinnamon) is sprinkled on top and baked for about an hour, until it is GB&D - Golden Brown and Delicious (to borrow an expression from Ming Tsai, a French-trained Asian-Fusion style celebrity chef and cookbook author with a great TV series, Simply Ming).

The cake is not complete unless accompanied by a healthy dollop of freshly whipped Schlagsahne - lightly sweetened vanilla flavored whipped cream.

Photo taken with a Google Pixel XL, light filtering in from a window.

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Quixdraw Loc: x

Attractive and tasty stuff - my German Grandmother made similar. The fruit in hers more purple so probably the customary plum. Can't for the life of me remember what she called it in German.

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Ausgezeichnet!

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

quixdraw wrote:

Attractive and tasty stuff - my German Grandmother made similar. The fruit in hers more purple so probably the customary plum. Can't for the life of me remember what she called it in German.

Thanks!

It would be either Zwetschgenkuchen or Pflaumkuchen, unless it was a different cake entirely.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

UTMike wrote:

Ausgezeichnet!

Vielen Dank für Ihre freundlichen Gedanken! I neither speak nor write German - other than a few culinary terms I've picked up along the way. I rely on my Berliner wife for the more involved stuff.

Quixdraw Loc: x

Gene51 wrote:

Thanks!

It would be either Zwetschgenkuchen or Pflaumkuchen, unless it was a different cake entirely.

The latter sounds familiar. She made similar with Peaches, also Buttercake, Stollen, etc. She believed in butter, if you put a piece of her buttercake on a paper napkin, it left a mark almost instantly. Of course, that was before butter was bad. Funny, it seems to have come full circle to be good again!

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

quixdraw wrote:

The latter sounds familiar. She made similar with Peaches, also Buttercake, Stollen, etc. She believed in butter, if you put a piece of her buttercake on a paper napkin, it left a mark almost instantly. Of course, that was before butter was bad. Funny, it seems to have come full circle to be good again!

We get hand rolled Amish butter, but it is always salted, which is not good for baking. I can get French, Danish, Irish and English butter, but most of it is salted as well. And our flour usually has too much gluten for tender cake and pastry, so I often have to improvise using a blend of All Purpose and Cake flour.

The German peach cake I make is called Pfirsich-Streuselkuchen, and I use almond and cinnamon in the streusel. It is a sweet yeast dough, so it's a little more like a Viennese danish.

Quixdraw Loc: x

Gene51 wrote:

We get hand rolled Amish butter, but it is always salted, which is not good for baking. I can get French, Danish, Irish and English butter, but most of it is salted as well. And our flour usually has too much gluten for tender cake and pastry, so I often have to improvise using a blend of All Purpose and Cake flour.