Scraping the Skillet

It’s that time of year! Everything seems to be in season…or fading out fast.

Plums are one of my favorite late summer fruits. I love their sweet-tartness. I love slicing one up to put in my oatmeal in the morning. I love having one – or three – for an easy snack.

This recipe is one we got from D’s Godmother, Adeline. That’s Ahh-De-Lee-Na. Pronounced the correct, German way. I often think I would love to use this name for a little girl someday, but I worry that I would want to pull my hair out every time someone pronounced the name wrong. Anyway…enough about my pronunciation neurosis…

A couple of years ago we were back in DC for a family visit/reunion and Adeline had us all over for tea. Among other things, she made us a delicious fruit tart – one of her family recipes. At that time D and I both acknowledged our love of cooking and food but had not begun our phase of “extreme dabbling.” If I were served the same tart now, I probably could have worked the recipe out for myself. That would have been less meaningful in a way, though. We waited 2 years before we finally got the recipe. I think we treasure it more because of the wait.

The translation is literally “Plum Cake.” It’s not really a cake, but it is plummy and delicious. The greatest thing about this recipe is that you can actually use any ripe fruit that you have on hand.

Pflaumekuchen

for the crust:
1 3/4 c. flour
1/3 c. sugar
1/8 t salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1 egg
2 T schnapps (or gin, vodka or water)

for the topping:
1/2 c sour cream
1 T sugar
2 T flour
2-3 pounds of fresh plums, peaches, nectarines or any other fresh fruit

for the glaze:
1/2 T cornstarch
1/2 c water
1/4 c sugar

Start by mixing the flour, sugar and salt together in a bowl. Cut butter into small pieces and with a knife and continue cutting it into smaller pieces in flour mixture as fine as possible. Add egg lightly beaten and the liquid. Work mixture together with cold hands and form a round ball. Your dough will be VERY sticky. That’s okay. Place ball in bowl, cover and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.

Butter or grease 2 pie dishes, one 9×13 pan, or other baking dishes well. With hands, spread or press out dough, filling the pie pans evenly. Because the dough is so sticky I keep sticking it back in the fridge so it is easier to work with.

Mix the sour cream, sugar and flour together well and then spread over the pie dough.

Slice up your plums into 6-8 sections per half. Arrange the sections in an attractive pattern on top of the sour cream mixture. Alternately, you can just halve the plums and place them cut side down. If you use this method, be sure to pierce a hole in the top of each half.

For the glaze, mix cornstarch with the water and sugar to make syrup. Boil over medium heat until it thickens. Cool, then brush over fruit you’ve arranged on the crust.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes or until the edges of the crust are lightly browned. When you remove your Pflaumekuchen from the oven feel free to brush with more glaze, as necessary.

Yum!