Plum cake – German recipe with streusel

To go directly to the plum cake recipe – suitable for both fresh and canned plums, with a fluffy base and crispy streusel topping – please follow this link.

A recipe for quick and easy Dutch Apple Pie, plus a video of me preparing it, is on YouTube (click here).

Season of mists, mellow fruitfulness, and plum cake

November is when the yellow leaves finally fall and reveal the delicate maze of branches and twigs that the foliage has been hiding. I love to see how it stands black against the blue or light grey winter sky. Some say that November is a dull and dreary month, but I don´t agree – it just teaches us to look for the smaller things and hidden beauties.

November is also when the canning season ends. Perhaps you still have a few apples to preserve, some sorts ripen late. But generally, this work is done. If for you, like for myself, the kitchen is a cozy place where you like to spend your time and get both busy and creative, you may consider November the beginning of the main baking season.

A recipe with fresh or canned plums

Fresh plums are no longer available, at least not where I live. But they still feel “in season” and I like to make plum cake throughout fall, before the Christmas baking begins (follow this link for simple German Christmas cookies). You can use the plum cake recipe I am sharing for either fresh or canned plums, it makes no difference except that if you use preserved plums, you should use the juice for another purpose, and also, they should only be cut in halves and have retained their shape.

Plum cake with streusel: Quick and easy for large company, or just for yourself

There are several popular plum cake styles in Germany. All of them have in common that they are very easy to make, rely on basic ingredients, and can be made both in a springform pan and on a baking sheet. Which makes all of them very suitable for large company, but also for occasions when you want a quick and simple cake basically just as a snack to have with your afternoon coffee. I like this recipe the most because it has a soft and fluffy base, but delicious, crispy streusel on top!

Is plum cake a German dessert? Discover “Kaffee und Kuchen”!

I have not decided yet in what menu section of this blog to put cakes, actually. Because the majority of my readers comes from the USA and would probably expect them to be listed among “desserts”. However, cake is not in the least a dessert in Germany. It was almost a culture shock to me when I came to England and they served cake as a dessert – how was I supposed to stuff it into myself after a full meal? I still have not figured that out. A dessert, here, is something light like fruit salad or yoghurt.

Cake is a meal in itself. It is almost always eaten in the afternoon with a cup of coffee. “Kaffee und Kuchen”, also just called “Kaffeetrinken” (coffee drinking, which includes the cake), is the German equivalent to the British tea time. On weekdays, most people really do just have a quick cup of coffee. But on weekends, or whenever there are guests in the house, the coffee will come with some cake, ranging from something very simple like purely a marble cake or streusel cake to a choice of elaborate cream cakes and fruit pies, depending on the occasion. Coffee and cake will accompany any public event, too.

So good a cake you can even offer it to your mother in law

Streusel cake with fruit, like the plum cake I am introducing here, is simple enough to make just for yourself, but not too simple to offer to your mother-in-law when she comes to visit. Whipped cream is always a good idea, of course!

In this plum cake recipe, the plums can be replaced with other fruit as long as it is tangy and juicy – I recommend trying it with gooseberries or red currants.

I usually use instant yeast. If you usually make yeast dough with fresh yeast, you can do that, of course. And if you prefer to make the fluffy base with sourdough rather than yeast, you will be fine, too (as long as you are used to baking sweet items with sourdough). What matters is that you have a soft and fluffy base with not too strong a taste of its own so both the plums and the streusel can shine their light!

So let´s get to baking. Give your mother-in-law a call, though, and invite her to Kaffee und Kuchen with some German plum cake this afternoon!

Plum cake with German streusel topping recipe

Ingredients

For the base:

250 g all purpose flour and a bit of additional flour both for dusting the table and for possibly adjusting the flour-water-ratio. Yeast consists of live organisms, so they react to specific conditions, e.g. room temperature.

150 ml water

1 tablespoon sugar. I like to use raw cane sugar, but you can also use regular white sugar, or a tablespoon of honey.

A small pinch of salt.

A little bit of butter for buttering the pan or sheet. (You can use baking paper instead, but I have health concerns regarding this. Act upon your own judgement, though!)

For the streusel topping:

150g all purpose flour

100g butter, room temperature (or margarine, but butter tastes better)

50g sugar. Again, I like to use raw cane sugar, but regular sugar is fine.

A pinch of salt

A pinch of baking powder (optional, it makes the streusel more brittle/tender)

1-2 teaspoons of cinnamon sugar

For the fruit layer:

Roughly 500 g of plums. Canned ones will be a lot heavier, so you may need a bit more in terms of weight. You need the amount of plum halves that will cover all of the base if you pack them really tight.

1-2 tablespoons of sugar, depending on how sweet or sour the plums are. Can be replaced with honey.

1/2 tablespoon of cinnamon, a pinch of ground cloves, a pinch of cardamome. (All optional.)

Instructions for plum cake with streusel topping

Base

Begin with the base, so the dough can rise while you take care of the other steps!

1. Put the flour and yeast in a bowl, stir. Then add sugar and salt. Stir again. Now add the water and stir it in with a spoon.
2. When you feel that you have stirred in most of the flour, knead with your hands. If the dough is too sticky, add some more flour gradually. I knead inside the bowl until I know the dough is no longer sticky, then continue the kneading on the table. My technique is to shape a ball, push it down a few times with a fist, then fold it over, push again etc.. I dust it with small quantities of flour when I think it is too sticky.
3. After a few minutes, the dough will be smooth. It should be ball shaped. Put this ball back in the bowl and cover with a tea towel. Leave on the counter (or in a slightly warmer place if you keep your kitchen cool).

Plums

These instructions are for fresh plums. If you are baking with canned plums, they are probably cut in halves and sweetened already. You may want to add the spices, but use a bit less. And of course, let them drip dry really (!) well.

1. Wash plums, dry carefully. Cut in halves and remove the kernel.
2. Put plum halves in a bowl, add sugar (or honey) and spices. Mingle in well with a spoon.

Streusel topping for German plum cake (also for Dutch apple pie etc.)

This is just a simple shortbread dough, actually.

1. Stir all dry ingredients in a bowl.
2. Add butter.
3. Mingle the ingredients well – use a blunt knife and make “cutting movements”. This way you will cut the butter into ever smaller pieces while attaching it more and more to the dry ingredients.
4. When you feel you can not cut the butter any smaller, use your hands to make a uniform dough.This may take longer than you think- do NOT give in to the impression that you need any liquid, egg, or more butter. All you need is more time working with your hands. If the the result is too sticky, add a little more flour.But not too much!

To bake

1. Butter conscientiously, but as thinly as possible, a springform pan or baking sheet (depending on whether you are making the regular recipe or doubled the ingredients). Alternatively, you can use baking paper on a baking sheet.
2. Roll out the yeast dough and put it into the pan. Distribute evenly the plum halves. Do not leave any gaps. In case of doubt, it is better to have a double layer of them at some points than to have gaps!
3. Crumble the topping onto the plums, dust with cinnamon sugar. I like my cake really buttery, so I distribute little bits of butter on it here and there; but you don´t have to do that – if you do, don´t take too much!

Bake for 30 minutes at 200 degree Celsius. (Be prepared to give it five to ten minutes more time if necessary. The crumbs on top should be just a tiny little bit bronzed.)

Eat hot or cold, with freshly whipped cream.