Pflaumenkuchen (Plum Cake) is a very popular dish among Germans. My husband loves it so I made this recipe. The dough is stiff but seems in keeping with every other German Kuchen of this sort that I have made. It still came out light and tasty so don't worry about that aspect. My only change would be the topping. First the recipe makes WAY too much topping for the size of the cake. I only used about a 1/3 of it. Also the topping didn't really seem to serve a purpose and just sat on top of the batter without seeming to cook or incorporate into cake. It was basically sugar flour dumped onto cake and took away from the cake itself. Since the German palette prefers less sugar anyway (and who needs the calories) I would omit the topping completely next time. That being said the basic cake was very good.
Delicious! My German mother makes pflaumenkuchen when we can find the good fresh Italian plums. This means about once a year usually. I found some canned plums and decided to give this recipe a try. It worked BEAUTIFULLY! So in case you wondered you can substitute the fresh for canned just make sure to pat the plums as dry as you can before baking. Also yes the "batter" is stiff. It's not meant to be batter it's meant to be dough that is pressed into the pan. Many German kuchen recipes are done this way because most German cakes tarts etc. are meant to be had with coffee so they have to be sturdy;-) Yes you can add sourcream to the dough to loosen it up and it tastes okay but it's delicious (and much more authentic) to make the recipe as is. The only major change I made-aside from canned fruit-was to use vanilla sugar (vanilla zucker) instead of liquid vanilla extract. Again simply because it's more traditional.
This was delicious. I had one minor problem with the batter being too stiff. I added a half cup+ of sour cream to make it easier to spread in the pan. I didn't have the size of pan rec., so I baked it in a tench inch spring form. I used 5 large plums cut in half (resulting in ten halves). Absolutely yummy and I will definitely make it again. Thanks for sharing!
I made this for my son's birthday as he doesn't like overly sweet cakes. I followed the recipe except that I added about 1 cup of sour cream as a lot of the reviewers said it was a bit dry. I left out the crumble topping because when my German grandmother made it it didn't have that and I didn't think it needed it. Lastly I sliced the plums into thin strips and pushed them skin side out into the batter because again that's how my grandmother did it. I think it makes a prettier presentation and it would be easier to slice. It came out fabulous. Everyone loved it. It was moist and not too sweet. I will be making it again!
The batter was thick. But it turned out great.
This was very good! I doubled the rescipe & added 1/2 cup of sour cream which made 2 large glass pie plates. I used plums from my dad 's trees and they're just as good. I will definitely make this again very soon!
Yummy! I used butter instead of margarine. I had sour cream so I added it. I turned on the broiler for 4 minutes at the end and the topping became quite crisp - like the top on cream Brule. Very easy to make delicious and really pretty.
I made it twice already. Very delicious. It was better the second time. I agree with the other comments the dough is very stiff. And after baking kind of dried. I'll try with the sour cream next time.
Needed to use up extra plums. Only thing I wasn't sure of is the batter didn't quite cover bottom of pan so I found myself stretching it to make it work. I only had 6 large plums but it was enough. For topping I traded off 1/2 the white sugar for brown sugar and used 1/4 t. cardamom and1/4 tsp. cinnamon. It was very delicious all in all.
I, too, found that the topping just sat on top and after 35 minutes baking it was still white flour sitting on top. I poured some melted butter on it and baked another 30 minutes. I will leave the topping off next time.
