Perfect German plum cake
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Loading... - Daisy Chapman
- 06 Sep 2021
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Prep 20 min
Prove 1 hr 20 min +
Cook 40 min
Serves 6-8
200g plain flour
3g quick yeast (or 10g fresh)
30g sugar
¼ tsp salt
120ml lukewarm milk
1 egg yolk
40g butter, melted and left to cool, plus extra to grease
600g ripe plums, preferably a dark oval variety (damsons will need more sugar on top)
30g ground almonds, breadcrumbs or semolina
4 tbsp demerara sugar
Zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
For the streusel topping (optional)
60g flour
45g demerara sugar
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
50g melted butter, cooled
30g almonds, roughly chopped
Grease a 22cm or thereabouts loose-bottomed cake tin with butter.
To make the dough, put the flour in a mixer with the yeast (if using fresh yeast, you’ll need to activate it in the warm milk first), sugar and salt, and mix together. Add the milk, egg yolk and cooled butter, and mix until you have a smooth dough; it will be quite soft, so if you knead it by hand instead, try not to add any more flour than you have to to stop it sticking. Put the dough in the greased tin, cover lightly and leave until it’s roughly doubled in size – about an hour, although it may take longer.
Carefully cut the plums in half along the seam and remove the stones. Make a small –1cm – cut in the end of each plum half. Punch down the dough and flatten it to fill the tin. Spread with ground almonds, then arrange the plums skin side up to fill the tin, packing them in closely. Mix the demerara sugar, zest and cinnamon, sprinkle on top and set aside in a warm place for 20 minutes.
Heat the oven to 200C/390F/gas 6. Mix the first four ingredients for the streusel together, then stir in first the melted butter and then the nuts, to make a soft, crumble-like mixture. Refrigerate until the dough is ready to bake, then sprinkle over the top.
Bake the cake for about 40 minutes until golden, then leave to cool to warm before turning out of the tin and serving with whipped cream.
