Deutscher Pflaumenkuchen

Ingredients

  • 170 sugar
  • 250g butter
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 400g Spelt flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla
  • plenty plums

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 355F.
  2. Pit the plums, cut them in quarters, and set aside.
  3. Combine butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla. Mix until creamy.
  4. Add flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix until combined and still crumbly.
  5. Butter a 1/4 size baking dish.
  6. Take about 1/2 of the batter, knead with your hands and form a bottom layer on the baking dish.
  7. Distribute plums on the baking dish.
  8. Place the remaining crumbly dough on top for the Streusels.
  9. Bake for 35min or until golden brown.

Notes

I’ve always used my Apfelkuchen recipe and made Pflaumenuchen when plums are in season. This year here in Alabama we are having such good plums from Chilton County, that I’m baking more Pflaumenkuchen than usual, which gives me chance to experiment with the recipe. First, I was trying to reduce the sugar. Through multiple iterations I ended up with 170g instead of 240g. It’s still sweet enough, but I feel I could not reduce it further without affecting the structure of dough. The next thing I changed was flour. I actually ran out of cake flour and used Spelt for the last cake. That was a clear winner. So, Spelt it is going forward.

Spelt is an ancient grain that was never hybridized. It likely is much healthier for that reason alone. In addition, the organic Spelt from Janie’s Mill, which I’m using, also has a 100% extraction rate. It’s subtle nutty flavor goes very well with the plums.


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