Plum Cake: Quetschekuchen

There are all sorts of names for plum cake in German: Pflaumenkuchen is more common in northern Germany, while in Bavaria and Austria it is Zwetschgendatschi/Zwetschkendatschi, " but in Hessen and part of the Rheinland "Quetschekuche(n)" is the name, and in some other areas the word used is "Zwetschgenkuchen," and in Switzerland it is "Zwetschenwähe."  

Some Germans make plum cake with baking powder, some make it with yeast, and I've actually read where some use only eggs to provide some lift. German regions in Europe tend to use Italian plums or damson plums, both of which are "egg shaped," but I'm sure Germans won't hang you out to dry if you use other varieties of plums. "Hey, was machen Sie? Sie brauchen noch ein paar Wäscheklammern mehr!" (Hey, what are you doing? You still need a few more clothes pins!) Further, many Germans add "streusel" on top of the plum cake before baking.* Also, some use a round baking pan or dish for plum cake, while others use a rectangular baking sheet (German: Backblech, or just Blech). Plum cake is often served with whipped cream or powdered sugar on top.

I had "Quetschekuchen" many years ago in Frankfurt, Germany, and I'll tell you about it, once I get these damned clothes pins off of me! Anyway, the bakery and pastry shops (called a "Bäckerei und Konditorei," in German) in Frankfurt just wouldn't leave me alone. All of the great window displays kept beckoning to me, "Randy.... look over here!" It was all too much and I bought a "Quetschekuche" (in Frankfurt they usually do not include the ending "n" in "Kuchen") and it was delicious.     

Ingredients:

8 to 10 plums (I use black plums)
3 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup lukewarm milk, just lukewarm, not hot (more, if needed, later)
1/2 cup sugar + 2 tablespoons (divided use)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
5 tablespoons butter, melted + 2 tablespoons vegetable oil added to the melted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla 
1 teaspoon salt (if you use salted butter, skip this, or use just a pinch)
1 packet of active dry yeast
2/3 teaspoon cinnamon

Wash the plums, then quarter them, but leave the peel on. Put the plum quarters into a bowl and mix in the 2 tablespoons of sugar, set the plums aside. In another bowl, add 2 cups of flour, yeast, salt (if using), and the lukewarm milk. Mix together to form a sticky dough. Cover lightly, put in a warm place and let the dough rise for 30 to 45 minutes. Add the 1/2 cup sugar, 2 eggs, vanilla and the butter, working these ingredients into the dough as you gradually add the remaining flour. If the dough is too dry, add some milk (doesn't have to be warm), but just a tablespoon at a time, but it's okay if the dough is still somewhat sticky. Let the dough rest and rise a little again for just 10 to 15 minutes. Meanwhile, line a baking sheet with parchment paper. I used a baking sheet of 17 inches by 11 inches, but you can use a little larger sheet and spread the dough thinner. I keep the dough sticky and put it in the middle of the baking sheet and then press and smooth it out by hand and with a spatula. Press each quarter plum into the dough in rows. Pour any juice that has accumulated in the bowl over the plums and sprinkle the cinnamon over the top. If you want to use more plums, you can make the plum cake sort of look like roofing tiles by overlapping the plum quarters. Bake at 350 F until the visible parts of the cake are a bit browned. I baked the one I made for this article for about 40 to 45 minutes, but the baking time will naturally vary by the thickness of the dough.
 
* "Streusel" (actually pronounced like, "stroy-zel") is a common crumbly topping used by Germans for many cakes and pastries. There are some variations, but the basic recipe is sugar (sometimes brown sugar), flour, butter and a spice or two, often including cinnamon. By the way, the word "Streusel" (all nouns in German are capitalized) is closely related to English "strew," as it is "strewn"on top of cakes, and it was formed from the verb "streuen," meaning, "to strew, to scatter (about)." The ending "el" is a diminutive, meaning it "makes it smaller," so the literal meaning of the German noun "Streusel" seems to be, "a little something strewn on top of a cake." German immigrants brought "Streusel" to the U.S. 

A piece of "Quetschekuchen" without whipped cream, then two slightly different views with Quetschekuchen topped with whipped cream and served with a cup of coffee

WORD HISTORY:
Dodder-This is a tough word to research, but there are relatives in the Germanic languages, with other relatives in Indo European. It is distantly related to "dust" and to "dizzy," words from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "dheu," which had the notion of "smoke, haze, dust," and then "dheus," which meant, "whirl, twirl;" thus also, "twist around;" thus also the figurative, "confused, hazy in the mind, dizzy;" thus also, "to shake, to tremble." An unknown form was passed to Old Germanic, which was continued only in the West Germanic branch, and which gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) the verb "dyderian," meaning "to delude, to confuse," and also the noun, "dydrin," meaning "egg yolk" (apparently, because yolks "shake, quiver"). Then "dad(d)eren" developed, meaning, "to shake, to shake causing the teeth to hit together." This then became "dadder," then "dodder." In the Germanic languages, German still has "Dotter" (egg yolk, or yolks, as the same form is singular and plural), Low German Saxon has "Dodder" (yolk), Dutch has "dooier" (earlier "doder"), West Frisian "djerreblom" (Marigold, the flower, seemingly from the flowers looking like egg yolks?). One of the problems with the history of "dodder" is, its ancestors had a wide range of figurative meanings, including, from the notion of "whirl," "whisk, mix together;" thus also, "murky;" that is, "something mixed together and, thus, unclear or impure."

Plum Pudding and Plum Cake

Believe it or not, it wasn't until a few years ago that I had my first "plum pudding." It was during the Christmas season and one of the stores had it advertised. I'd long heard of plum pudding, but I really didn't even know what it was. It came in a small tin canister, as I recall. I tried it and I liked it. It is in the same sort of category as fruit cake, as it contains pieces of dried fruit in a spiced dark cake like mixture, laced with rum or brandy. A little research revealed there are no plums in plum pudding, the term for the dessert being taken from the fact that up until about two hundred years ago, raisins were referred to as "plums" in England, and plum pudding has lots of raisins. It eventually came to be associated with Christmas in England and some people made the pudding about a year in advance, allowing the product to age for a year, before serving it. Plum pudding made the journey across the Atlantic with English colonists, whose descendants became Americans, and I suppose it may still traditionally grace the Christmas menu in parts of New England, or a few rural areas, where such traditions have lingered. The term "pudding" will also throw most Americans off, too, as in England, puddings can mean a dish of meat and other ingredients boiled or steamed until solidified into a loaf or sausage, or a pudding can be a pastry or a sweetened dessert like rice pudding. To non American readers, most Americans certainly think of pudding as a milk-based kind of custard, or cornstarch thickened flavored milk dessert.

Initially I was going to include a recipe here, but there are many and you can find a multitude of such online or in cookbooks. The general idea is, raisins, dried fruit peel, and spices like nutmeg, ground cloves, and cinnamon are combined and soaked in rum or brandy for a few days. These are then mixed with flour, bread pieces or bread crumbs, eggs, sugar, and more rum or brandy. The dough can then be wrapped in cloth and steamed or boiled, or put into a bowl and steamed.

Plum cake (what Americans might call a plum tart) is something I became attached to in Germany, where bake shops frequently had them displayed in their windows. There are many regional terms for this dessert in German, with "Pflaumenkuchen" (literally "plum cake") being more common in the north and a wide variety of forms like Zwetschgendatschi/Zwetschkendatschi" (in Bavaria and Austria), "Quetschekuchen" (Hessen and part of the Rhineland) or "Zwetschgenkuchen" used elsewhere. It is my understanding that it is also made in the German part of Switzerland, but I'm not sure of the name they use for it there. A plum tart has a flat, usually yeast-risen, somewhat sweetened dough rolled out like a pizza crust for a baking sheet. The pitted, but unpeeled plums are fitted onto the dough in overlapping fashion, like roofing tiles. Sugar and cinnamon are sprinkled over the top, or in some regions, it is more of a streusel like topping. I loved the "Quetschekuche" of Frankfurt, along with a cup of coffee.         

WORD HISTORY:
Plum/Prune-These are really the same word, but in slightly altered forms. The ultimate origins are uncertain, although many believe the term to come from an ancient language in the area of what is now Turkey, but well before the Turks settled there, and people in that area in ancient times were often Indo Europeans. Anyway, Greek had "proumnon" which then became "prounon," which meant "plum." Latin borrowed the word from Greek as "prunum," which then became "pruna." Old Germanic borrowed the word from Latin, but with many of the Germanic dialects changing the "r" to "l;" thus Old English (Anglo-Saxon) had "plume" (likely pronounced as "ploom-eh," before the "u" sound changed to a short sound, and the ending "e" was dropped). The Latin form "pruna" was inherited by Old French, a Latin-based language, as "prune." English borrowed the word circa 1400; thus English has "plum" for the fresh fruit and "prune" for the dried, wrinkled, shiny fruit. Forms in the other Germanic languages: standard German has "Pflaume"^ (plum) and both "Backpflaume" and "Dörrpflaume" (dried plum/prune); Low German Saxon has "Pluum" (plum) and "Backpluum" (prune); Dutch has "pruim" (plum) and "pruimen" (prune); West Frisian has "prom" (plum); Danish has "blomme" (plum; notice the "b" in place of "p"); Norwegian has "plomme" (plum) and Swedish has "plommon" (plum) and Icelandic has "plóma."

^ Standard German is based upon a form of High German. One of the characteristics of High German long ago was the "frequent" change in sound of "p" to "pf" and sometimes to "f." Thus while English has "pipe," German has "Pfeife," where the first "p" changed to "pf" and the second "p" changed to "f." The Low German dialects and Frisian were not affected by this sound change, nor was English, as the Anglo-Saxons had already departed the mainland for Britain by the time many of the changes which brought about High German had taken place.